Tabitha Butler

this book was full of heavy themes, and whilst normally i would praise an author for bringing light to such topics, for me, this was written at such a surface level, it did an injustice to the seriousness of the content. the characters, firstly, showed little character development, with Ryle receiving frankly very little consequences of his disgusting actions. We are expected to almost forgive him by the end, and excuse his behaviour simply because of his role as father and his frankly very random childhood trauma. It felt as though that was thrown in the middle of the plot as a weak attempt for us to feel sorry for a literal ab*ser. Lily herself felt just as childish as her adult self as she did her teenage self and i believe it's because the writing is so surface level, we never truly get to connect to her. The theme of the baby seemed unnecessary and just thrown in as another attempt to keep Ryle relevant and less villainous, and whilst i understand it brings light the difficulties that pregnancy can bring to woman in ab*sive relationships in terms of leaving, the author did not even entertain the idea of there being other options for Lily. Finally (though i could talk on this forever), the last ditch attempt to have Atlas and Lily get together, felt unbelievable and forced. It was almost as though the author forgot they wanted Lily to have the perfect happy ending and quickly wrote a random finish when they remembered. Overall, Ryle was not rightfully punished or held accountable, the fact we are meant to feel sympathy for him brings about a completely backwards message, the topics of pregnancy were not sufficiently explored, the characters were surface level with little to no development and the plot and development felt weak and sometimes rushed.