If Only I Had Told Her: The Instant #1 Sunday Times Bestseller (If he had been with me, 2) Paperback – 6 Feb. 2024

If you love a good sad story that makes you ugly cry this is the read for youWill be hard to recover

Wow! Finished this book within 24 hours, could not put this down.For me, this was better than the first book (which took me just under a week to read, and I had rated 3 stars). I thoroughly enjoyed that this book was written from 3 perspectives, it was great to see the story from Finn and Jack’s POV as well. I liked that the start of the story (Finn’s perspective) kicked off right as the first book was ‘beginning’ (about 80% in as it was extremely slow paced, and this is when the action began), which was the perfect starting point for this book. I did wonder (before reading) how Jack’s perspective would’ve worked, but it portrayed grief extremely well - especially in a best friend aspect. As I’m currently going through grief myself, it really resonated seeing the different perspectives and sides to grief, and I think Jack’s POV tackled this really well.My two niggles in the first book was the ‘short’ chapters (it was a lot of stop start which doesn’t work well for me), and Autumn doing the same thing to Sylvie that Jamie and Sasha did to her. I am extremely glad that both of these were tackled in this book, in the sense that the chapters were a good length (there were a few short ones in Autumn’s POV but 1) what did I expect when it was also Autumns’s POV in book 1, and 2) at this point of the story I didn’t care how short the chapters were because I was invested), and Autumn held herself accountable for her and Finn’s actions against Sylvie. We love to see it. The only downside is that Autumn’s perspective did not seem ‘as Autumn’ compared to book one, but I suppose we could blame that on her changing due to Finn’s death/her attempt/pregnancy.The ‘normal’ sized chapters, different perspectives, as well as ‘action’ taking place straight away, easily gave this more stars than the first book.

This book had me hooked from the very first page! The storytelling is immersive, the characters are well-developed, and the plot is full of twists that kept me turning the pages. I felt completely drawn into the world the author created, and I didn’t want it to end. If you love fiction that keeps you engaged and entertained, this is definitely a must-read.

My book came today but was damaged, the pages of the book was folded back in the parcel.

Purchased the book for my granddaughter (14 yrs old) she is enjoying the book.

This is even better than the first! I struggled to finish the first book, ‘if he had been with me’ but this one I couldn’t put down from the start. The ending was a little disappointing though.

If Only I’d Told Her by Laura Nowlin, is the companion book to If He Had Been With Me. The first section is told from Finn’s point of view up until the accident. The second part is told from Jack’s point of view post accident and the final section is told from Autumn’s point of view, also post accident.Whilst the book was a little too sickly sweet (as the first one was), I enjoyed reading about Autumn, Jack and the other characters post the accident. It tied up the other book nicely.As with the first book, I really enjoyed this companion read. It is also a tear jerker and a heartbreaking story of young love and grief.

I was happy when my daughter asked me to order this book. That's why I quickly bought it. It's so hard to ask a teenager to read books. Now she falls asleep after reading. She says that the book is very interesting.