A review by rosalynbelles
The Life You Left Behind by Debbie Howells

dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

 
The Life You Left Behind 
 
1.5 Stars 
 
Where do I start with this book? 
 
 
Synopsis: 
 
Two strangers. 
 
One missed flight. 
 
It only takes a moment to change a life. 
 
One year ago Casey Cassidy was happy. She had great friends, a wonderful teaching job and a busy life - until with one missed flight, everything changes. 
 
One year later Casey knows what it means to find that once-in-a-lifetime love people dream of. But when Ben leaves, her heart is shattered. 
 
Left facing a year of firsts without him, piecing her life back together seems impossible. But then a friend offers her a home in rural France. 
 
In the solitude and emptiness, Casey needs to comes to terms with what’s happened and find a way to move forward. She has no idea where that will take her one year later... 
 
Review: 
 
There are very, very few things that I enjoyed about this book. – there were even moments when I had to call my friend to rant about how much I did not like this book, how often it was actually ridiculous. 
 
It took forever to get through, yet felt like it was too short based on the content and how it was written. It only took me a few days to read, but felt like weeks by the time I was done. 
 
We follow a story of Casey, before and after the death of her husband Ben. Before, as they meet and their whirlwind love story told in snippets of moments, vs after, when Casey moves to rural France into a house her friend Kevin gets for her by knowing the owner. 
 
To begin, there is no warning before reading this book that there is a suicide, nor the fact that Ben doesn’t leave the relationship or breakup with Casey, he commits suicide. I think that it would have been a good warning to have – or at least something more than a synopsis that sounds like the main character is getting over a traumatic breakup. 
 
Secondly, there is not a single character that had a good arc. Casey comes to rural France, drinks a lot of wine in her pyjamas, takes care of some stray cats, reads a diary that was more interesting than the actual story but had a horrible representation of bipolar disorder, went to a bar, tutored a kid for maybe 10 pages, and talked a lot about how she never knew her husband had depression. 
 
The dealing of Ben committing suicide was one of the worst mental illness representations I’ve seen in a long time. His reasonings didn’t feel real, it all felt superficial and that the author just really wanted to put some information out about how the world is changing and the dangers of the meat industry – but didn’t even do that well. It was all in snippets that didn’t align well, especially with topics as rough as the ones brought forward. 
 
Once you realize what the tone of the book is, it feels like it’s almost too late to not finish it, but too far from the end to enjoy it. The topics of depression, bipolar disorder, the meat and food industry felt like they were barely researched and it was all off of memory from research that happened months ago, there was no in depth to what was being felt by the characters, it was all very glossed over. Along with moments that should have been more in depth – Casey telling Ben about her sister and her guilt, confessing her guilt to her mother etc. were all very surface level and read very fake. There was no real emotion anywhere in the book other than when Casey finds Ben. 
 
The book comes to an end with Casey going on a retreat that she had bought for Ben, his suicide being taken as “this is what I was made for” and “everything happens for a reason” – Ben’s death being necessary for Casey to do good in the world with what Ben was passionate about. The last few chapters are supposed to be uplifting and joyful compared to the rest of the book, but it felt so rushed and false-hopeful when it comes to the rest of the content that I had to sit through. 
 
Overall, I really struggled through this book. I love darker themed books, but was not at all prepared to be frustrated with the writing style, the content, how the content was handled, and how it all wrapped out. So much was missing by the end and it left me more annoyed than satisfied by the end of it. 
 
I would just like to thank NetGalley for the ARC I received in exchange for an honest review. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings