‘Blink Once’

By Cylin Busby
Published by Bloomsbury, October 2012
RRP £6.99 (paperback)
ISBN 9781408825808
Reviewed by Katy Hawkins

West has the perfect life until an accident leaves him paralyzed and completely unable to move or even breathe on his own. The future looks bleak, his girlfriend dumps him, and West believes the road to recovery is untenable (despite what his nurses tell him) ... until he meets the intense and mysterious Olivia. She becomes his best friend and eventually they begin to fall in love with each other. Meeting Olivia, whose room is next to his in the hospital, changes everything for West, and slowly, he begins to recover. But there’s more to Olivia than meets the eye - and West is stunned when he finds out the truth. The blinking of the title seems initially to refer to the way that West and Olivia communicate, but there’s a twist in the tale for that, too.

Blink Once is not the most unpredictable story and it’s fairly easy to figure out what is going to happen from about halfway through the book. However, having a good idea of what is coming doesn’t make the novel any less compelling and it gives the reader an opportunity to really become wrapped up in the complex characters Busby has created and the relationships between them as they blossom. The ending might not be the most surprising but it certainly satisfied me and although it wasn’t necessarily the happy ending some readers may have hoped for, it did tie things up neatly. I would recommend this book to any fans of young adult novels who enjoy well-written characters and strong writing.

Highly recommended for readers 11+