Before I Let Go (United States-Alaska)

Started: April 2018

Finished: DID NOT FINISH

Setting: USA-Alaska

Pages: 358 (hardcover)

Publication Date: Jan 2, 2018

Right off the bat I should admit that I did not finish this book. As I write this review I am about 1/2 way through and will probably not bother to finish it. Why?? It's just too heavy and overly dramatic for me. It's not so much about the issue that one of the main characters (Kyra) has to live with (we learn in flashbacks that she is bipolar) but rather the writing style. And how there seem to be scenes involving another main character (Corey) that repeat themselves over and over and over again - like a bad soliloquy that is repeated with interludes to break them up. And it all plays out against the backdrop of a remote Alaskan town named Lost Creek.

If you go to Goodreads you will find many reviews, so I won’t go into the details or premise. In reading other reviews on Goodreads I see that others also had issues with this book – though to be fair, people also liked it.

I wish I could better articulate what it is about the book (at least what I have read to date) that I do not like. I mentioned above that it is too heavy. Actually, the main character Corey is too heavy and overly dramatic – too intense. Her angst over what happens to her friend Kyra is over the top. Her reactions seem to me too extreme. And too intense. She professes to care about Kyra and is heartbroken about Kyra’s life. But we learn that while Corey was gone from Lost Creek, she (gasp) got enmeshed in her own life away from Lost Creek and developed friends and had a life and did all those things you are supposed to do when you are young and leave a small town for a better opportunity. And in the process she didn’t keep in contact with Kyra as much and as often as she planned to. It’s a perfectly natural reaction, she got a life. But once she returned to Lost Creek, she begins to (almost) punish herself. She blames herself for leaving Kyra, not keeping in touch more, not being there for her. And when she comes back, she tries to solve the “mystery” of what happened to Kyra after she left, as though she is THE ONLY ONE who can do that.

It’s almost as though the author is trying too, too hard to make us care about Corey. And as a result, I just don’t care – not about Corey, not about Kyra, not about the people of Lost Creek, not about any "mystery" surrounding Kyra and definitely not about finishing the book. Sorry, I wish I could leave a different more positive review but I have to honest. There are too many books waiting to be read and I can’t waste any more time on this one.