A review by blearyeyed
If He Had Been with Me by Laura Nowlin

dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

3.25

This one took a while to get through, largely because I knew how it was going to end. A little before the middle, I felt a stagnancy in the novel and just had to set it down and come back to it. But I am so, so glad that I decided to finish it. Autumn is an interesting narrator, honest and inquisitive yet clueless. I like her, but I don’t actually feel that we get to know her that well. 

There is so much talk of her mothers depression and The Mothers friendship, but for topics that come up so frequently, I don’t feel as though they are given the depth that they deserve.

A lot more could be said, but I pulled an all-nighter to finish this book, so it’s at least that good. I did become frustrated with the irony (hypocrisy) at the end- Autumn was cheated on, and that is unacceptable, but Finn is cheating on Sylvie, and that is mostly OK.
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