Summary
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GENRE
AO3 TAGS
Their love was supposed to last forever. But after two devastating tragedies, Yasmen and Josiah Wade realized love alone couldn’t solve everything or keep their marriage together. It’s taken a year since their split for Yasmen to finally start feeling like herself again. But the more she sees Josiah-whether it’s parenting their two children or working together at the restaurant they co-own-the more Yasmen realizes she may not be ready to completely let go of everything they had together. Like magnets, Yasmen and Josiah are always drawn back to each other, and one almost kiss soon leads to more. It’s hot. It’s illicit. It’s all good…until old wounds start resurfacing.
Hot Takes
What We Liked
Jems
After seeing Kennedy Ryan and Sarah MacLean speak at a romance book talk with Apers, I was super excited to read this book! Even though contemporaries and the writing style that often goes with them are not my particular thing, I ended up getting a lot out of Before I Let Go. I particularly appreciated that although the main characters’ desire to get back together triggered a lot of the emotional work that went on in the story, the ultimate reason both of them wanted to heal was for themselves and those they love. Ryan’s frank portrayal of loss, grief, and depression made this romance raw and visceral in a way that made the happily ever after a testament to hope.
What We Didn’t Like
Apers
For a very brief moment in the middle-end, I thought we were going to go for a miscommunication trope despite the entire book being built around the couple learning how to communicate with each other again after devastating losses. I hate that trope, ever since I read Othello in high school English class, and it is often in contemporaries because there’s not real stakes in why people can’t just be together in a contemporary. I was glad that it didn’t last long, at most a couple of pages of spiraling, but I was not here for that regression of the characters and their trust in each other.
Review
Apers
For me, this romance burned a little too slow, but there wasn’t any moment where I considered stopping or was annoyed (except the brief miscommunication). I liked the frank discussions of mental health and the benefit of therapy, especially the resolution for all four family members in the end. I also loved the sense of community from the neighborhood and everyone within it, which is one of the things I cherish the most about my actual job as a librarian in my community.
Jems
The handful of spicy scenes in this book were downright HOT even if they were tame kink-wise (though there were some shenanigans in public places 😈). Yasmine and Josiah’s passion and love for one another really made their intimacy burn blindingly hot, you could really feel the sensuality on the page. The way they are still crazy about each other well over a decade into their relationship and the palpable desire between them definitely left me satisfied!
