Reviews

Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson

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drakoulis's review against another edition

5.0

This is my first book I read from this author, and it was quite unique !

First of all, it was totally different than expected. The first half of the book feels dark and grim. Wil is

Spoiler

a captive of his kidnapper forced to assist him in his crimes, while Jack has never known love and is following the greedy self-centered Enchantress Evangeline.

Neither of them is in a good place and both of them have a lot of mental baggage. Books with characters struggling to overcome chronic emotional abuse are not what I normally choose to read so I was very meh until the halfway point.

But the second part captivated me and made me fall in love!

Spoiler

Here Jack and Wil realize that they have something to really live for: each other. Jack shows Wil what real love feels like, Wil gives his heart to Jack so purely and brings the best in him.

. And there are so many sweet scenes of them together! That's something a lot of YA romance books are missing, the couple actually having happy and cute moments. This book had them! I liked the final showdown with

Spoiler

all their friends cooperating to save Wil and even selfish Evangeline helping them (with ulterior motives of course, she killed two birds with one stone) free Wil from Teddy!

The final paragraph was so so good!

shinymathrocks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

sophiesarcasm's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

3.0

vaporization's review against another edition

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3.0

a bit heavy handed. Lucia is the most interesting, there should have been more of her

minslibrary's review against another edition

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I tried to finish this, I really did, but it just became such a chore towards the end that I couldn't do it. And it's not like I'd enjoyed it much if at all until this point anyway.

I would describe the writing of this book as clumsy. It was repetitive, sometimes the characters felt inconsistent, and there were a lot of things that didn’t make sense.

I wasn’t invested in the central romance, either, nor was I impressed by the characters. It’s not necessarily that I disliked the characters themselves, it’s more like I disliked the way the author wrote them. They could’ve been interesting to read about, but the way they were written was aggravating.

This book tried to touch on some really heavy topics, but I don’t think the author handled that as well as they could’ve—it just felt like the subject matter was far too heavy for how the characters reacted to it or handled it.

By the end, it just became physically painful to try and continue reading this, which is unfortunate because from the premise alone I thought I was going to love this.

horatios_ghost's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

this book was just not for me, man. the plot was pretty predictable and i found a lot of the cast to be one-note. on the positive side, despite the actual length, it was a quick read, and i cared about wil quite a bit! if you're in the mood for queer historical romance without the period-typical homophobia, this will scratch your itch (though because racism and sexism are mentioned throughout the novel it does feel weird that being gay is a-okay <- words of a person with Thoughts on this)