A review by mmccombs
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

An absolutely astounding debut. I was hooked from the beginning, I could tell that these characters would be impactful and so fun to read about as soon as they were introduced. Isabel is a wonderfully prickly character, and seeing how her development played off of the house, also a character in its own right, was satisfying. 
My only critique is that it seemed like Isabel’s motivation suddenly flipped out of nowhere, like she was very grumpy for the first half and then substantially softened in the next without a clear reason why (at least in my reading). There were some moments where I was like “wait, is this the same Isabel I was reading about literally 20 pages ago?” so I do think some jumps in character development were made in service of moving the plot along.
The yearning and romance was wonderful, there were some genuinely funny moments, and the ending added a thought provoking (if maybe a little heavy handed) layer to the story, which makes me want to reread it already. This book was quiet and confident and well crafted, I really enjoyed this read and expect to come back to it.
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