“I was neither holding up nor falling down, just aimlessly continuing.”
Lech Blaine pens his story of an unforgettable night that massively changed his entire life. Recalling the night of the car crash when he was in the car with his other six friends, he still couldn’t comprehend what happened during the last few moments before the crash. Three of his friends were killed, and two were in comas. He was the only one who walked away unharmed from the accident. The news of the accident goes viral on social media and sensationally reported on TV with questionable validity for some of the truths, and some of his friends had assumed his fatality on Facebook.
Aside from the car crash, Lech tells the story about his family, friendships, and the events which led to the seven passengers in a car on that night. He also expresses his struggles between his father’s hope on him of becoming a sports player and his passion for literature. In the aftermath, rumours of speed driving, drugs and alcohol were involved, which caused the collision. Burdened with survivor’s guilt, Lech lived an aimless life overlooked by the people around him. Without his knowledge, it has slowly driven him into depression and self-destruction until he no longer bears it anymore and asks for help.
This is a different narrative style for a memoir of a tragedy. It was written with some sense of humour and in a slightly light-hearted manner. I sense there is a touch of sarcasm or probably mocking the media and other teenagers trying to take advantage of the tragedy to get attention for themselves. I feel writing a book about the tragedy is another way to express his inner feelings, which probably difficult to just tell it out to others. I hope Lech will live better than the day before as time goes by, even though the tragedy will be painful to remember but difficult to forget for the rest of his life.
ISBN: 9781743821459 (ebook)
Number of Pages: 224
Rating: ★★★ (3/5)
More reviews can be found on Goodreads: Car Crash: A Memoir by Lech Blaine.