From the Bookshelf of Turning Pages At Midnight…

A Five-Minute Life

Emma Scott

Start date: June 1, 2019

Finish date: June 5, 2019

Discussion: Buddy Reads

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What Members Thought

May 17, 2019 CC rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: angsty-mild-to-i-have-an-ulcer, hearts-and-flowers, bbs-challenge, feels, arc, f-br

4.25 Stars

Thea Hughes grew up in a loving family and always lived spontaneously, pursing her creativity as a painter. At 21, with all on the horizon for Thea, tragedy strikes and she is forced to live in a restricted existence. Two years later, and on a continually scripted reel, Thea is desperate to break out of her shell.

“She was direct as hell but smiled at me as if there was a secret between us that only we knew.”

For most of his life, Jim Whelan was bounced between foster homes until f ...more

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May 16, 2019 Anne OK rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019-reads, 2019-kindle-unlimited

My heart is bursting with love for Jimmy and Thea. Their love story will shake your foundation and is artfully crafted by a masterfully skilled writer. The emotions are breathlessly overwhelming. The words, phrases, thoughts and feelings on every page had me mesmerized. At the halfway mark, I knew I was a goner. This book is so powerful in its message and these characters won't disappear when you've read the last word. They’ll easily win your heart and keep it forever. Emma Scott has done it aga ...more

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May 19, 2019 Lindsay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019, arc-for-review, may-2019

I really didn't know what I was getting into with this book, but it was really good and so worth it. This is definitely not your traditional romance novel. On one hand, it had a 50 First Dates vibe (not as comedic though), but at the same time, for the beginning of the book, it didn't feel like a romance. It had a feel of Jim trying to help, give someone a voice when he, for so long, didn't have one of his own. He saw things other people missed. He was a new pair of eyes, a fresh pair of eyes to ...more

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Jan 03, 2020 Julie rated it really liked it

Imagine your future staring you in the face with so much promise. Nothing could prepare you to encounter an event so life changing you might never recover. For Thea – life consisted of art and all of the beauty that was the inspiration behind the craft. With a loving family by her side, there wasn’t anything in the stars that wasn’t achievable. At least that was the premise before an unavoidable tragedy changed the trajectory of all those hopes and dreams.

When you feel the need to ‘find yoursel Imagine your future staring you in the face with so much promise. Nothing could prepare you to encounter an event so life changing you might never recover. For Thea – life consisted of art and all of the beauty that was the inspiration behind the craft. With a loving family by her side, there wasn’t anything in the stars that wasn’t achievable. At least that was the premise before an unavoidable tragedy changed the trajectory of all those hopes and dreams.

When you feel the need to ‘find yourself’, life can lead you on unpredictable paths. With a new job at Blue Ridge, Jim finds that there is more to working that showing up from 9-5. As home to traumatic brain injury patients, Blue Ridge Sanitarium offers Jim a chance to cross paths with a patient that will forever change how he sees his job. In spite of first appearances, Thea seems to be completely normal. The five-minute loop of Thea’s life quickly draws Jim to the conclusion that there is more to this patient than meets the eye.

With years spent on a constant loop inside her head, Thea still finds a way to pull at Jim’s soul. The two seem to form a connection in spite of everyone’s insistence that Thea will never remember Jim. Little rays of light shine through the therapy that Jim tries to sneak into Thea’s routine. It is obvious that Thea can remember far more than the hospital realizes. When a unique set of circumstances present themselves, the door opens to offer Thea a chance to walk back into the land of the living. Will the hope for a different future result in more than Jim and Thea bargained for?

Holy Smokes!! First let me say that Emma Scott has once again tackled a unique storyline that was as different as the stars in the sky. Every page of this book pulls you in with the promise of ‘more’. Jim is defiantly the hero that will leave you desperate to learn more about his character. What can I tell you about Thea? Seeing the world through the lens of Thea’s life was a journey of ups and downs, highs and lows.

Now – there were a few things about the book that pulled my attention from the plot. The story takes place Charlottesville, VA. Then there is precise detail about Jim’s travels through Boones Mill (in Franklin County) to Roanoke, VA. The distance traveled, landmarks, and other places in the area are factual places. When Blue Ridge Sanitarium is presented, it is told to be in Roanoke. In fact – there is an ACTUAL Blue Ridge Sanitarium in CHARLOTTESVILLE which use to be a tuberculosis and mental facility. There are author notes that Blue Ridge is a fictional place, so it completely threw me. Why make such concise notes in the book about towns and distances (saying Boones Mill is 15 min from Roanoke) to fictionalize a REAL institution?? On one hand the inconstancies (Boones Mill is on the edge of Franklin Co and you enter Roanoke at the county line. ROANOKE CITY is 15 min from Boones Mill) could have been solved with a quick Google search if in doubt. Now – why does all this nag at me??? Well – this is where I live. When picturing the layout in my mind, it would drive me bonkers that ‘real’ places were moved to other towns. However – the story was written to sound like Charlottesville and Roanoke were just right down the road from one another. That is definitely not the case.

I found myself sidetracked from the battle of fact and fiction in the story. The tug of war pulled me from the story so much that I had to take a breather and come back to the story a couple of times to get into the groove of the intended mindset for the storyline. The unique ambiance of the novel far outweighs the little things that nagged me as a ‘local’ (and certainly wouldn’t be noticed by others). With that said – A Five Minute Life is definitely a book that everyone should have in their collection.
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