Blink Once (review)

West is a confident, athletic guy who loves riding his mountain bike with his best friend, Mike. When he wakes up in a hospital after a biking accident, he has a hard time understanding what's happening to him until Olivia, the beautiful girl from the room next door, comes to his room and tells him he's paralyzed. As West drifts in and out of consciousness, he's aware of all that is happening to him, but the only person he seems to be able to communicate with is Olivia, first through blinking, then through writing on a white board. West and Olivia become closer until they fall in love, and she is distraught when she learns he will be having a surgery that will take him away from her. When he recovers and comes back to visit her, though, he finds that things were not at all what they seemed to be, and he must come to terms with some haunting realizations. Readers will be captivated by the melodrama here—the poignancy of young lives interrupted by tragedy, and the growth of love in the midst of uncertainty and loss. West's recovery is almost as hard on him as his accident was, with his newfound knowledge that there is more to life than science and medicine can understand. Readers looking for a fresh twist on paranormal romance will find West and Olivia's story sweet, tragic, and thought-provoking.