Lilyya ♡'s Reviews > Before I Let Go

4.75 stars

ps: it’s been a hot minute since i wrote a full review so i don’t think i did this book justice but alt i tried

“I laughed. then she laughed and I wondered if this—finding someone you can laugh with when everything hurts—was the stuff happily ever afters were made of.”

i was once again bewitched by Kennedy Ryan's spell in this heart shattering, life altering, nonpareil story that is yet so realistically crude in its rhythmic reflection of the typhoon of hurt, grief, and struggles that real-life married or divorced couples may be englufed in.

“even in that new loneliness, there was a kind of relief to have only one thing to save. not my marriage, but just myself.”

if reviewers can be interpreted as love letters, this is my love letter to Yasmen.
Yasmen, an exceptional mother and a extraordinary woman. her character and personality were a contradictory tangled web of strength and self-doubt, compassion and resentment, feelings of mourning and gratitude. all these juxtaposed traits emphasized so vividly her struggles between finding a synchronous equilibrium with her pre-self and post-self depression. realizing that she has lost a part of herself that cannot be recovered, realizing that she is incapable of healing that wound or bridging that void. the realization led to the first concrete and substantial step towards embracing the new version of herself, the new chapter of her life. the first step towards healing.

“I will love you until I die. we said till death do us part.”
“death is tearing us apart.” her laugh is bitter and short. “we assumed it would have to be our deaths that ended this. turns out it was theirs.”

although the book is wrapped with a pretty cover, the content is heavily influenced by grief and mental health representation. the book taught me a lot. it gave me valuable insights into how certain individuals tend to tame their life, struggling to go through every day until they reach a point of rupture after finally welcoming their mourning feelings. and how others prefer to sink and drown in their life rather than ever face the overwhelming emotions sewed to their loose.

“when you lose someone that close, the enormity, the finality of it, sometimes hits you full force when you least expect it. when you are least prepared. and your heartbeat stutters and your knees nearly buckle, just like when you first heard they were gone.”

Josiah’s personage taught me a lot. that for once, it’s never too late to reach for help. but compared to Yasmen, I felt a stronger emotional and spiritual connection when it came to dealing with grief with his character. he was acting as though everything was fine and his life wasn't falling apart for a good portion of the book and i grow on feeling attached to his character the more he struggled to destroy the cocon he built around his grief. (even though I didn't like him at all at first.) Josiah and Yasmen’s therapists taught me a lot too. their sessions were great additions to the storyline because their conversations were always pertinent and on point, shedding light on some shadowed aspects of their personalities and relationship.

“we said vows.”
“those are words, not walls. they don’t defend. they don’t enforce. they don’t protect us from life. from pain. from how things change. and I don’t want to stay in this just because we said we would.”

the book shouldn't be categorized as contemporary romance, as it is more of a women's fiction work, in my opinion. simply because there was no substantive romance in it. the romance was more abstract than anything, particularly with the past chapters and the uncanny attraction between the protagonists. or how every secondary character depicted their relationship as once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. however, It didn't bother me while I was reading, and I didn't encounter any difficulty in picturing them as soulmates. on the contrary, the author's plume filled with raw emotions and elegiac connotations ensured that every word's meaning was quadrupled and every scene brilliantly portrayed.

i can’t wait to dive into Soledad story next. because yay i was lucky enough to grab the arc from NetGalley!!🤗

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i’m not ready for another heart-wrenching book by KR but i need to woman up.. so, here we go