The Reading Perusals of Rose Summers

Quick review for a quick read. Monica Murphy's "Never Let You Go" kind of disappointed me, considering it covers such a heavy, emotional topic and set of events. When we last left Will/Ethan and Katie - they had a major falling out considering a secret that Will/Ethan had regarding his identity and their respective relationship. The book starts off with the difficult process of them reconciling their grief and that particular secret. On some levels, I appreciated that and could believe it, but my major issue - for a time - was that the details of their reconciling were too telegraphed, too spelled out, not enough subtext. It was a struggle for me to read through it because I prefer narratives that show these emotions and push/pull, not spell it out so that it takes away from the emotion and suspense of the relationship.

Then the book goes into territory that was a point of no return as it started to telegraph the perspective of Will/Ethan's father and his motivations (and his interactions with the reporter Lisa, who was quite the obvious villain for much of the narrative with how she dug for information and manipulated both Will and Katie for her own means). I thought at that point the narrative became too cartoonish and unrealistic for me to believe in it, even to the point of the explosive conclusion of the book (which should've been emotional, but I just felt like I knew what was going to happen after a time and I couldn't believe in its realism at all. It felt anti-climatic and gimmicky to me.)

All in all, a series with some emotional potential, but not enough to really sell me, sadly. And contrary to the opinion expressed in the notes beginning in the ARC, I really think this should've been one book rather than two. Some of the repetition of details slowed the momentum of the book in places and made it more bogged down than it should've been.

Overall score: 1.5/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher.