Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp

Before I Let GoBefore I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

cw: bipolar disorder, suicide, death, grief, mental illness disregard by some characters

First of all, let's take a moment to acknowledge that our MC is asexual, and that her friend is pansexual (clear on-page labels), which made me tear up multiple times while reading it. Recently I made a Twitter thread about how platonic best friendships are my absolute favorite things to see, and the friendship between Corey and Kyra was an example of this. The only thing was, it felt like the diversity here was being shoved into the characters and their lives, instead of it organically growing and being shown blatantly on page. There was also a pro medication and therapy for mental illnesses that was happening on page, which I could appreciate. Now onto the thing that I didn't particularly enjoy here.

The way that this was originally marketed to me was as a thriller/mystery, and when you throw in that genre label I have certain expectations. I don't think it knew what it really was: supernatural mystery? Paranormal contemporary? As much as I had adored Nijkamp's debut: This is Where it Ends, my high expectations weren't really met with this book. I want to be on the edge of my seat, sweating trying to puzzle things together. In this story, I didn't feel any of those feelings that I want to while reading a quality thriller. Instead I found myself slowly trudging through the story, yawning during it, and considering DNFing it because nothing was happening for hundreds of pages of slow buildup.

Just want to clarify before I get to this part, that I am an ownvoices ace and aro reviewer. So this is yet another narrative where asexuality and aromanticism are equated. I feel like sometimes all you need to do for basic research about this distinction is just use google. By that you would figure out that the MC is rejecting her best friends romantic love to her because she's aro (or strongly aro-coded) not because she's ace. So maybe it's bold of me to say this, but at the time I was really hurt by the fact that there was clear aro erasure, which is why my rating is as low as it is.

Corey herself was very bland and underdeveloped as a character. I wish we could have gotten more growth and a different perspective after this whirlwind of a journey happened. If you asked me who Corey really was, her likes and dislikes, things about her family, I couldn't really tell you much. Unfortunately, she's written as a one dimensional character which really turns me off from these types of books.

Honestly, the ending was unsatisfactory and there was just no closure. I was still extremely confused about what had happened to Kyra, and felt like I was in a fever dream while reading. Oh well, maybe someday I'll have a dream at night to imaginatively create an alternative narrative that would be better than my waste of time that I spent on these 350 pages.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.



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