Book Review: Then and Always by Dani Atkins

At First Sight: Rachel Wiltshire has a great boyfriend, a place at a good university, great friends and a bright future. Until the night she and her group go out to celebrate their going away to college at the end of summer and a tragic accident leaves her life in pieces.

Years later, she returns to her hometown for her best friend's wedding and she's a completely different person, scarred both physically and mentally because of that accident and the things it took away from her.

Until tragedy strikes again, and she wakes up in a whole new-world, unsure which one is reality and which one is just a dream. 

Second Glance: I know it sounds like I gave away something of the plot of Then and Always but I actually kind of didn't, and I don't really have much to say about it other than it generated in me the same response as The Black Swan when I saw it: a big fat "That's it?"

I won't go into more detail than that, but while the writing was nice and I generally liked the characters and the plot of the book had lots of potential; the last minute twist - which I saw coming but was kind of hoping it wasn't what I thought it was going to be; just to have my hopes dashed because it totally was what I thought it was - was a last straw for me.

I just don't seem to enjoy when a book takes me on one direction and then deliberately switches lanes right at the end, for me it's a bit of a cheap shot. There were parts of the book that I really liked though, the book had me right at the beginning but then it lost me as it went on.

Bottom Line: All in all, I don't think Then and Always is a bad book, just that it was a bad fit for me. If you're into this sort of "sliding doors" and surprise reveals type of book, this might totally be for you. And really, the writing was good, it flowed pretty well, my troubles were more in the line of the plot itself. 

1/2