Dare to Remember

5 Plus Stars

This book is the painful and insightful story of a young woman recovering from a horrifying event in her life. She and her best friend were attacked. Her friend Ali did not survive.

Ever so slowly, Lisa beings to recover. She never goes back to the flat where it all occurred. Instead she rents a cottage about an hour away. She gets to know the elderly man who lives next door and his dog, Riley. As the old gentleman can’t get around so well any more, Lisa takes the dog for long walks and begins to be very attached to it. She goes to the shop for him.

Lisa suffers from sudden and profound panic attacks. In grocery stores, on her walks or anyplace she feels threatened. These scenes of apparent overreaction are par for the course for someone suffering from PTSD. (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) Lisa feels that her visits to her psychologist don’t seem to be doing much good. But they are, gradually, slowly she is getting better.

Lisa meets Jessica on her walks and her dog, Bobby. They form a friendship that is rather tentative on Lisa’s part. Here I must interject that I had Jessica’s relationship with her husband pegged almost from her first comment that he wouldn’t let her get a job – even a part-time one.

As someone who suffers from PTSD herself, I can relate to everything Lisa is going through. I still have my little rituals many years after the events which made up my personal traumas. I won’t go certain places. I must do things in order and well planned out in advance. I am a very private person, who doesn’t trust or give to others easily. And so on…So I felt every panic attack, every doubt, every feeling of guilt and rage that Lisa felt. It was astounding! While the circumstances of Lisa’s assault were different, I was there too. My decision to go into clinical psychology was no doubt based on my experiences.

The writing of this book was brilliant. The words used accurate and profound.

I want to give a grateful thanks to Netgalley and Legend Press for allowing me the opportunity to read this most remarkable book.

Dare To Remember is an interesting, well-written debut, but I’d recommend you don’t go into this expecting the fast-paced thriller that the blurb suggests. It didn’t exactly set my world alight, but it is a good, slow-burning psychological drama and a character study.

The story follows a couple of years in the life of Lisa Fullbrook, opening immediately after a brutal attack. Lisa and her best friend, Ali, were attacked in their own flat, and Lisa wakes up groggily in hospital – she’s the only survivor. Shaken by the loss of her friend and haunted by survivor’s guilt, Lisa moves out of the city to a small village, where she lives a reclusive life trying to work through her trauma.

The problem is, Lisa can only remember fragments of the night of the attack, and she’s convinced there’s something crucial alluding her. Something which would explain the overwhelming feeling of guilt that haunts her. As well as being traumatised, afraid of men and crowds and generally anything which involves her leaving her house, Lisa is crippled with guilt at the loss of her friend, so much she can’t face the funeral or seeing any previous mutual friends.

The mystery lies in recovering Lisa’s lost memories, but as the story progresses it becomes much less about uncovering what happened that night and much more about how Lisa is able to rebuild her life. Although she does her best to hide from the world, she does forge new friendships and, through them, she gains more perspective on her own issues, until finally she’s able to face them head-on through regular therapy and restorative justice – a new system which allows victims to come face-to-face with their attackers.

At under 300 pages, this is a short novel but in some ways it felt longer. It’s written in a manner which feels quite distant at times which took me a while to adjust to, but the author still manages to get to the heart of a severe trauma. The plot is slow-moving, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it gives time for the characters and atmosphere to breathe, but it isn’t the fast-paced thriller it’s being marketed as. Instead, it’s a journey of survival and one woman’s battle against trauma – and at that, Susannah Beard has triumphed. An interesting, emotional read.

For this particular book, I request that you ignore the description on Goodreads. I can’t say that there was any great mystery to be solved in this book. This is definitely not an edge of your seat thriller. The events were not at all surprising or mind blowing. The book does not really cover new ground.

So what was it?

This book was emotional. Lisa did indeed suffer a great trauma and the author is accurate in describing how people recover from trauma. In order to survive, Lisa hid the truth in the depths of her subconscious. This is the story of Lisa finding the strength to remember. It is not a thriller, but it doesn’t need to be. Adding a thrilling mystery would have taken away from the path to healing. This is about Lisa. It is about facing the past constructively, rather than destructively.

It can safely be said that Dare to Remember was indeed about Lisa daring to remember the worst night of her life. And it was worth it.

"Dare to remember" is the story of a young woman named Lisa who undergoes a life changing trauma when an acquaintance follows her and her flatmate home from a pub. By night's end her flatmate and best friend Ali is dead and she will spend the next month in hospital with life threatening injuries.

The problem? Lisa Fulbrook is so injured that she misses the trial and sentencing - AND - she cannot remember what happened that night. Why did Ali die while she lived? Why them?

When she is finally released from hospital, Lisa moves to a quiet village to recuperate. She rents a small house and works from home. She goes out only to shop for the necessities and when she does, she bundles up with a scarf to hide the angry knife scar on her neck. She shuns social contact for the most part, but befriends John, an elderly man who lives next door. A widower, he lives alone except for the companionship of his small black spaniel, Riley. When John becomes unwell, Lisa takes over the walking and general care of Riley. Having this small fur person in her life gets her through some of her most harrowing and lonely times.

"Riley is her lifeline"

While walking Riley, Lisa meets a new friend and fellow dogwalker, Jessica. Though Lisa is withdrawn at first, Jessica's gregarious nature wins Lisa over and the two become friends. Even Jessica's friendship though cannot alleviate Lisa's increasing depression.

As the months pass, Lisa valiantly tries to remember the sequence of events that occurred the night of the attack. Grieving for her friend Ali, she suffers from survivor's guilt and disturbing flashbacks plague her days... and her dreams. Her regular trips into the city for psychotherapist appointments do not seem to be helping. The circumstances of the attack continue to elude her and Lisa feels disengaged with life, as though she is just marking time.

"She's had enough drama to last her a lifetime."

Events unfold that force Lisa to become involved with other people. All the time, the reader wonders if she will remember what happened to her. And... if she does, will she be glad that she remembered, or devastated?

The entire time I was reading this novel I kept wondering, "Is Lisa as genuine as she seems? or, is the author tricking me and Lisa is an unreliable narrator? As letting you know the answer to that question would be a spoiler (and I never divulge spoilers!), I guess you'll have to read the book yourself to find out.

Though it is touted as a psychological thriller, I think the novel is more of a slow-paced suspense novel. There is no real mystery here, and no huge twists or thrills. Just a well-written book that explores how people can be affected by trauma and how interpersonal interaction can help them adapt and strive through it. The novel also explores 'restorative justice' and examines how it can benefit the victims of crime.

The fact that "Dare to remember" is Susanna Beard's debut novel is belied by the skillful writing and thought provoking plot. All in all, an enjoyable read for those who don't need a fast pace or tension-filled pages, and who like endings that are neatly tied up.

This book was too hard for me to read, because of personal experience, but because I know that it was very well researched and excellent portrayal of what a person has happen after tragedy, I will recommend to many.