Kyra Paver

I thought this was indeed an entertaining read, there are times when I literally had to take a breath at the sudden plot twists, etc. Hoover shows a great representation of abuse and I have a lot of respect for having Lily walk away from the situation not for herself or for Ryle, but for her daughter. However... I have to say I am a little disappointed, it felt like aside from the abuse situation there wasn't much depth in the characters. No development aside from the Lily and Ryle situation, I wasn't exactly a fan of Lily fantasizing over Atlas when with Ryle in her journals or holding onto everything he gave her (magnet, etc). I don't think that was very fair and in a way, sort of felt like Ryle was just a 'for now' thing until Atlas came running back. I would have liked to have seen a lot more help on Ryle's side, he did mention therapy once but after that, it had vanished, was he on medication at all for his trauma and blackouts? It was kind of hard to understand why that wasn't covered enough. Sometimes I had to skip over chapters because I didn't feel they were necessary. Unfortunately, from my perspective, Lily in her journal and Lily irl sounded like two different people. There were a lot of times where the occasional 'life lesson' sentence had been thrown in and although I think it was worded beautifully I don't think it was necessary. I was a fan of the last chapter as I feel like Lily did the right thing for her daughter but I didn't like the epilogue at all it made me think that everything mainly was leading up to Atlas and Lily just ending up together, which again I felt like Ryle was just a replacement until Atlas was ready for Lily. All and all I do think it is worth a read at least once but I can't exactly put into words if this is one of the best books I have read. It gives us an inside of abuse which I appreciate, but some things just felt a bit dry and unnecessary and could've been replaced by development for characters as I do really feel like Ryle didn't get any. I will be reading more of Hoover's books though and I am appreciative that this was my first read as a struggling writer I really appreciate how the book was worded beautifully, well done Colleen!