I received this novel as an advance copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I waited a long time before getting into this novel. Something about this story just made me hesitant. And then I got bogged down by work and other novels and never got a chance to go back to it (which is terrible since I’m always trying to get to Netgalley books on time). But I finally got to it… so here is my review:
10 years ago, Julie Portland accidentally killed her best friend, Reba. What’s worse is she got away with it. Consumed by guilt, she left the small town of Lawrence Mill, Mississippi. Now, raising her daughter and struggling to make ends meet in Manhattan, Julie still can’t forget Reba. When August, Reba’s first love, begs Julie to go back to Mississippi with him to find Reba’s diary, Julie’s past comes creeping back to haunt her. That diary could expose the shameful memories Julie has been running from, but it could also unearth the hidden truths that Reba left buried…and reveal that Julie isn’t the only one who feels responsible for Reba’s death.
I really did not enjoy this novel. There were a lot of things that just didn’t work for me. I thought this novel would be primarily told from Julie’s point of view. And while most of it was, there were also other perspectives thrown in that took me aback. With no introduction, a chapter would suddenly be told in the perspective of some other character. This really affected the flow of the novel, making it choppy. There were diary entries scattered throughout the book, and while I usually enjoy that, I didn’t like it here. That was mostly because the voice of the diary entry was very awkward. The story took a long while to get going and I kept waiting for that moment where the story would pull me in … but it never happened. There was nothing really appealing about the story. None of the characters were likable, and I didn’t really care about what they were going through because they were just so selfish and immature. I thought there would be more twists and turns in the plot but it was really just about Julie and August getting the diary (which happened pretty easily, in all honesty) and then reading the entries that the reader has had access to already. Nothing really made this novel shine or took it over the edge. All in all, I was pretty disappointed with this book and for those reasons, I’m giving it a 1/5 stars.
Happy reading ~
