Reviews

Such a sweet story. I loved this one it made me feel all warm inside. Second chances are so beautiful. The characters were written beautifully and it captured the emotions so well. This book made me feellllll!

Tropes:

drbookbabe's review against another edition

Go to review page

5.0

Loved this book. Loved the characters and the storyline. Very cute but not overly cheesy. Love Colleen Hoover!

dmsullivan's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.5

It's not you, Colleen, it's me.

I should just start out by saying that I've come to the conclusion her books aren't for me. I enjoyed It Ends with Us and Verity (the first two of hers I had read), but other CH books have just been OK in my opinion- not terrible by any means, but not anything I'd pick up and read again.

This one was fine -- I appreciate CH tackles "hard to talk about" situations like this one -- our FMC Kenna has just been released from prison for involuntary manslaughter of her boyfriend Scotty. She returns to her hometown to hopefully reunite with her daughter who is currently living with her deceased boyfriend's parents. We also have our MMC, Ledger, Scotty's best friend, and very involved in the life of his daughter.

You feel both sorry for, and angry at Kenna for her actions. You eventually learn what went through her mind during the accident and in the time afterwards, and why hadn't said anything at the time of the trial. I also appreciated how protective Ledger is of Kenna and Scotty's daughter Diem, and how him and Scotty's parents are very cautious having Kenna introduced into her life.

This was a fairly quick and easy read, which was what I was looking for when I picked it up.

3.5 stars.

Random thoughts:
- CH definitely goes out of her way to find unique names for her characters.
- The initial "after hours" meeting of Kenna and Ledger was weird to me.
- I thought the ending was a bit too neat and easy -- for Scotty's parents to be so against Kenna meeting Diem, even after knowing everything that happened through Kenna's letters, they were suddenly just "OK" with everything. Well, I guess if you want a somewhat happily ever after, you got it.
- While I liked "Lady Diana," I was hoping she'd play more of a role instead of a random side-character.