A review by mary_do_12
If He Had Been with Me by Laura Nowlin

emotional sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

let me be honest, i read through four years of autumns life and i couldn’t have been more unaffected. it felt like in those four years, nothing at all happened.

but i was ready to sort of accept all that, when i was hit in the face with BOOM
CHEATING TROPE
(sort of)
BOOM
ACCIDENTAL PREGNANY
(two people! that are in high school!! from their first time!!!)
and i lost it.
you lost me.


the reader knowing the end from the start was supposed to be mysterious and cool, probably, but it didn’t feel like it.
where was the tension?
where was whatever was supposed to make this book interesting?

also, autumns suicide attempt was very uncomfortable for me, and that‘s simply because the whole book had a way of being shallow, and throwing something that serious in there right at the end felt very odd and almost romanticized.


could not conform to this book very much.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings