Review by dwinn5 - August Lane

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dwinn5 's review for:

August Lane by Regina Black

4.5

challenging emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was not an easy read (check your CWs/TWs), but it was so good. Regina Black is a very talented and underrated romance author, and I can’t wait to see what else she does. I’ve had my eye on The Art of Scandal for a long time, so now I’m even more excited to pick it up.

This book reminded me a bit of Seven Days in June, not just because of the dual timeline, the second chance trope, the big, life-altering blow up that broke the leads apart as teenagers, the characters’ struggles with addiction, or its important discussion of race in white-dominated fields, but mostly its general tone and the audience who will enjoy it. In my opinion, this one is for the seasoned second-chance fans. It is a bit more emotionally intense, and there are plenty of bumps in August and Luke’s road, but if you are an avid believer in forgiveness and appreciate romances that don’t shy away from human fallibility, I think you’ll enjoy this one. To the extent that a romance novel can (ie: they are contained to approx 350 pages), the narrative does not let either character off the hook easily, which I appreciated, but it also brought healing into the equation in a very real way.

I always struggle a little bit with lyrics included in books, but these were definitely better-written than most I’ve encountered, so they didn’t grate too much. There were also moments where the emotional leaned toward melodramatic and took me out of the moment, but I was always ultimately brought back by a randomly dropped, soul-shatteringly good line that reminded me what a good writer Black is.

P.S. I would love to see this get the Daisy Jones and the Six treatment, in that it would make a great music-based mini series. Someone get on that, I want to hear August and Luke sing the real version of Another Love Song together.

Content Warnings