A review by luensiisolen
Before The Fall by Juliet West

1.0

I didn't really like this much. I wouldn't have even finished this book if I wasn't reading it for a reading challenge (and I had been having trouble finding an interesting book for this particular challenge of a book that takes place during the First World War). The details about that time were actually good and interesting and made me wish I was reading another book, just about the everyday life in London during the First World War. The characters and their relationships - particularly the big "romance" - were so badly done that I couldn't care about them at all. The main characters kept saying that they loved each other and couldn't live without each other but I couldn't see that anywhere. It felt very much like telling instead of showing. I've read plenty of romances in the romance genre and literary fiction I've found wonderful and engaging, but this wasn't anything like that. I didn't care at all, and the supposedly tragic ending just left me incredulous and frustrated. Maybe I should have seen it coming after the references to Jude the Obscure, but still, what the hell? I saw that a lot of people had given this book five stars, which made me wonder if we've read the same book, or if there's something I've missed. This definitely wasn't for me, and I wish I'd read something else instead.