Tag: grief

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – Regretting You (Colleen Hoover)

Posted on by Katie Night

Hey Dearies!

I did finally take a break from thrillers! (I know you are shocked!)

This one was actually recommended to me through Kindle Unlimited, and I did know there is also a movie for it. I saw the trailer for it, and when I saw it was based on a book, I wanted to read it before I saw it. I tend to see movies before I find out they are based on a book.

Plus, my friend had read the book and seen the movie and said it was definitely worth giving it a go. Mind you, this was the same friend who recommended all the thrillers I’ve been reading!

Before I go any further, I will be comparing both the book and the movie, so if you haven’t read or seen either one, a spoiler alert is in place!

The book first starts out with Morgan, Chris, Jonah, and Jenny when they were teenagers. Morgan is dating Chris, while her younger sister Jenny is dating Jonah. You can tell that Jonah has feelings for Morgan, and to be honest, they seem more compatible with each other than Chris and Jenny.

Anyway, Morgan finds out she’s pregnant after she graduates high school; Chris and her get married and raise their daughter, Clara, together. It fast-forwards to Clara being 15; Morgan and Chris are still happily married, and her sister, Jenny, ends up having a baby with Jonah, and they are engaged to be married.

It starts back out at Morgan’s birthday, where they are all gathered to celebrate. While they are waiting, Clara is running late because she helped her crush, Miller, get home. He was moving the speed limit sign closer and closer to his grandfather’s house, just so they would be able to get pizza delivered.

Clara ends up calling her Aunt Jenny to tell her all about it, just like any other teenager; they would rather tell anyone else but their parents because, in their minds, they don’t understand what it’s like to be a teenager.

Which is something I used to say to my mother when I was a teenager. Granted, when I look back now, she did understand, to a point; however, she was a teenager in the 90’s while I was a teenager in the 2010’s.

Moving forward to the following day, Morgan ends up watching her nephew since Jenny is going back to work, as her maternity leave is over, since Morgan is a stay-at-home mom. So, Chris, Jonah, and Jenny all go off to work. It’s all fine until Morgan gets a call saying that Chris has been in an accident.

When she gets to the hospital, she sees Jonah there, and she finds out he was called because Jenny was in a car accident. Come to find out, Chris and Jenny were both in the same car that killed them both.

At first, both Morgan and Jonah were confused about why they were in the same car together because they thought that Jenny was going back to work today at the hospital and Chris was going to work as well.

However, after they got calls from the hotel saying that Chris’s vehicle was still there and Jenny’s bag was waiting to be picked up, they found out that Chris and Jenny were having an afair that no one knew about. Of course, Morgan doesn’t want to believe it and tells Jonah not to tell Clara why Chris and Jenny were in the car together.

As a mother myself, I understand exactly why Morgan wanted to keep that information hidden from Clara. She always thought of her dad and aunt so highly, and if she found out that they died in a car crash because they were having an affair, it would crush her. However, telling her what happened would’ve prevented Clara from acting out against her mother.

Since Morgan didn’t want to tell Clara the truth about what happened, she started to resent her mother. This is when Miller comes into play. At first, he has a girlfriend, but is off and on with her until it finally ends; that’s when they start getting closer, not just as friends, but more.

So doesn’t Jonah and Morgan- Jonah finally confesses that he’s always had feelings for her and that he knows deep down she did too as well. Of course, Morgan is too stubborn to admit them, but over time she finally does. Clara ends up catching them kissing and thinks that her mother and Jonah were having an affair, and ends up convincing Miller to have sex with her for the first time.

Which I give props to Miller because he asked several times before they got ready to do the deed, and she just told him yes. Of course, Clara wasn’t ready, and Miller was more mad that any time her mother pissed her off, she would use him to get back at her. Which any other guy would just leave and not talk to her about it, but he ends up staying with her and comforting her.

Finally, both Morgan and Clara sit down and talk about what really happened between Jenny and Chris, not to mention that the “baby” Jonah and Jenny had, Chris was actually the father. They really had a heart-to-heart about it.

Now, the movie does follow the book fairly well; the only thing that it missed, which I’m glad it missed, was the film project Miller and Clara were working on. I honestly didn’t really care about it when I read it, but the prom video Miller made for Clara was perfect.

Overall, both the book and the movie were really good. I honestly loved the mother-daughter relationship and them both learning how to cope with not only the death of their loved ones, but also having to learn to move on without them in their lives.

I did watch the movie with my mom; she didn’t read the book, but she liked the movie as I did. We both ended up crying at the end too. I actually preferred the movie over the book. The book also was slow getting into it, and it did take me longer to really get into versus other books that I’ve flown right through.

What did you think about the book? Or did you see the movie first and then read the book? Let me know in the comments down below!

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – If Only I Had Told Her (Laura Nowlin)

Posted on by Katie Night

Hey Dearies!

This book is actually the sequel to If He Had Been With Me. If you haven’t read the first one, I highly recommend you do so, as this post contains spoilers from the first book.

So, a spoiler alert is in effect.

At the end of the first book, If He Had Been With Me, Finn and Autumn confess their feelings for each other. They slept with each other, and Finn had planned to see Sylvie the next day to end things with her so he could be with Autumn.

However, he got into a car crash and was fine, but he saw that Sylvie didn’t have her seat belt on and was launched through the window when they crashed. He went to go help her and got electrocuted, as it was also downpouring in the rain. Finn didn’t make it, but Sylvie did.

Autumn, of course, is heartbroken about this and tries to end her life. She did get saved in time and was taken to the hospital to recover, and also found out she is pregnant with Finn’s baby. This was a month after Finn had died that she tried to take her life.

That’s how the book ends, and when I read that, I had so many questions about what would happen after that. You just can’t end a book at a cliffhanger like that, not know what happens next!

The sequel pretty much starts from Finn’s POV, I want to say right before the accident. So, he’s helping Autumn with the breakup with Jamie. Spoiler alert: he dumped her to go be with her best friend, Sasha. I saw something sort of happening because Jamie was spending more one-on-one time with Sasha, and I guess they had better chemistry.

I honestly think that because Autumn never slept with him, I think that’s why he sort of went to Sasha, because before Autumn and Jamie started dating, Sasha also liked Jamie, but Jamie was more interested in Autumn than Sasha.

Anyway, Finn and Autumn spend the summer together, spending time like they did when they were best friends and before the distance had happened. Finn was starting to pull away from Sylvie, but he did tell Autumn he wanted to break up with her in person, since that’s what his best friend, Jack, suggested that he do.

I really liked that we got more of how Finn was feeling because you didn’t really know until towards the end of the book when he confessed he’s always been in love with her. I honestly wish the first book were a mix of both Finn and Autumn’s POV, but having him in this POV definitely showcased his feelings for her.

Plus, you also have to read about what the fight between Sylvie and Finn was about. Apparently, Sylvie already had a feeling that Autumn and he were getting closer while she was away on a trip to Europe. She confronted him while he was driving in the rain, which led to the accident.

However, after Finn’s POV ends, it goes to his best friend, Jack’s POV. I really had a hard time reading his POV, I really did. I swear I was falling ASLEEP trying to get through his point of view. I’m not kidding, I read during my breaks at work, and my co-workers saw me dozing off while reading his POV.

First of all, you only hear about him and meet him once in Autumn’s POV. Which is why I really wished the author did it in both POV’s because you only get Autumns and only really get to know about Jack’s in Finn’s POV. If we knew more about him BEFORE in the first book, I could relate to him more, but he’s just a stranger, and honestly, not really necessary to have in this book.

It also doesn’t make any sense to have his POV, I’d rather Sylvie’s POV be in there instead of his! You guys, I really almost gave up on this book completely because of his POV. However, I made it through, thankfully, which brings us back to Autumn’s POV.

Thankfully, her POV was her coming with the terms that she’s pregnant and both Finn and her mother, or the Mothers, as Autumn calls them, are helping her cope with not only the loss of Finn, but preparing her to become a new mother so young.

She also gets some help from one of her friends, Angie, who ended up getting pregnant while in high school, just to understand how different your life is after having a child so young. It also makes me feel better that she still goes to therapy and group therapy, too.

You do find out she’s having a girl as well, but the book ends before she gives birth, which I was bummed about because it would be nice to see her raise their child and that scrapbook she wanted to create for the baby, with memories that they had with Finn when he was alive.

Honestly, I’d like the book more if it went into details and skipped to when their daughter is older and can react to seeing what her dad was like. I’d probably get more tearful about those verses when he died, since I figured that is what had happened.

Overall, it wrapped up the book okay. It wouldn’t be something I’d read again, honestly. Jack’s POV just ruined it for me. It was okay to know how his other best friend was dealing with it, but Jack is so emotionless that it’s hard to relate to or sympathize with him.

I did like how it showed the aftermath of how difficult it was to lose a loved one very suddenly, and learning how to cope with the loss. Again, I really wish the original book were in both Finn’s and Autumn’s POV. Then again, the name of the sequel would definitely have to change. It would’ve been interesting to switch Jack’s POV with Sylvie’s POV.

Anyway, what did you guys think about the sequel? Did you struggle to get through Jack’s POV as much as I did, or did it wrap up loose ends from the first book? Let me know down below!