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leahnyfeler 's review for:

15 Summers Later by RaeAnne Thayne
1.0

This is my first one-star rating because I planned to reserve that low mark for a book I couldn’t finish. But “15 Summers Later” changed everything.

For a novel centered on a traumatic escape from a cult and the aftermath from one sister’s survival memoir, this is a story where nothing happens. Every plot point is telegraphed; we know Luke and Madi love each other immediately; anyone with sense knows who the Center’s “anonymous benefactor” is.

Worse than a book where nothing happens—a badly written book where nothing happens. Overly detailed as a replacement for development. Purple prose on treacly tropes. Atrocious sentence structure with laughably misplaced modifiers. And the “quotes” from Ava’s book introducing each chapter were cringey. I finished this simply to find the worst sentence … which maybe the last:

As she gazed into her husband's eyes, Madi knew their story would endure far beyond this dance under the stars.