Rebecca ‘Bec’ Landry is a go-getter who has everything going for her. Currently working as a paramedic for the city of New Orleans, she has worked her way through nursing school, passed her NCLEX, and just started dating her new police officer boyfriend, Mack. A career as a pediatric nurse looms on the horizon in the new year. While she has had to work hard to get to where she is, Bec has a huge support team behind her cheering on ‘Team Bec.’ While life isn’t perfect, everything has finally fallen into place for her; that is until a domestic violence call on an EMS shift changes everything.

Bec is caught in the crossfire of a shooting that claims the life of her best friend and EMS partner, Travis. She escapes with her life, but Bec Landry is left navigating a world defined by silence, trauma, and grief.

In Wreck: The Sinking of Rebecca Landry, Elizabeth Ream pulls so much from her personal experience as a licensed psychotherapist working with individuals navigating grief and trauma. Through Bec, Ream shows how trauma can impact every layer of someone’s life and how, without support, someone can fall into a fatal spiral. Bec utilizes many psychotherapeutic resources, including therapy, medication, support groups, and a service animal, which shows the depth and breadth of the resources available.

Although the book includes vivid descriptions of an unconventional and cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) program, it is only relegated to the final chapters of the book. While it may have been fun to see more of the tool in the book, it makes sense that it is not introduced earlier. Bec uses it as another tool to help her overcome her trauma. It is only by using the VR program in conjunction with all her other resources, especially having a strong support group around her, that she can rediscover herself.

As she journeys through loss, memory, and recovery, Bec discovers that healing is not about returning to who she once was, but about becoming someone new. Wreck: The Sinking of Rebecca Landry is a powerful novel of rebuilding a life shaped not by loss, but by what someone is willing to become.

Reviewed by Jessica Dickenson for Reader Views