Laura Nowlin’s If He Had Been With Me broke my heart when I read it last year. If you haven’t read this one, it tells the story of Finn Smith and Autumn Davis, whose mothers are best friends, and have known each other for their entire lives. With their mothers joking that they should get together, these two had a deeper emotional connection that can only be described as soul mates.
Nowlin then followed up with the story If Only I Had Told Her, which was released in February of this year. The book tells the story from Finn’s POV, leading up to the ending of the first one. However, what I didn’t realize was the fact that made up only a third of the story. The remaining sections of the book were told in the point of view of Jack, Finn’s best friend, and Autumn once again.
I’m not going to sugar coat this book. This book will break your heart. I don’t want to spoil this one if you didn’t read the first one, but I will say that you will be found with tears in your eyes throughout the entirety of the book.
Now that I gave you the warning, let me add this — reading this book was 100 percent worth it. I didn’t realize that I needed to know more until I was sitting and doing so. This book goes into what happens to your loved ones after tragedy, all while balancing the challenges of coming out of being into a teen in high school to a young adult embarking on their freshman year of college. All of the characters’ reactions seemed realistic and not overdone. Grief and moving on is such a huge theme of this book, and I think this was done in such a beautiful way.
Since this novel is technically a YA one, I do believe that it’s something that teens and adults can read to understand the topics of grief in a way that was done right. It’s hard enough being 18 without dealing with the heavy emotions of grief.
Grief aside, I think the love story of both Autumn and Finn was beautiful. There will be no happily ever after for them, sadly. However, tragedies aside, I still think that this was still a beautifully written love story, and one that is meant to be told.
Aside from Autumn and Finn, I loved the cast of characters. I loved hearing from Finn’s point of view, but I also loved reading the perspective of both Finn and Autumn, because it showed how the events at the end of the first book wrecked them.
So yes, get your tissues ready for this one. However for me, it was a four star read, and I was so happy to revisit this world once again.
thenutmegmillennial.com 