I’m including the blurb at the bottom of this post because I’ve skipped summarizing this one.
I hadn’t read Colleen Hoover before but I bought this last year when it kept being recommended under YA and decided it was time to fit this into hectic TBR. As it’s already well-reviewed, I’m going to skip the summary and get right into my thoughts. Morgan and Clara already have a stunted relationship, so when they lose Chris, it makes things even harder. They are each going through their own kind of grief because they lose more than Chris.
Clara is dating Miller, someone her father already didn’t like. So she has to deal with her mother not looking at him through her own eyes. The thing about Miller to me is that he was a shallow character. He was there in the background, and then suddenly was a love interest to Clara, with no real depth, no build-up, nothing. I’ve read insta-loves, and I enjoy them done right, but Miller was one-dimensional, so there was nothing to get me to like him. I didn’t hate him, I just had no attachment to him.
Not only did Morgan lose her husband, but her sister as well. She has gone through not only the ultimate betrayal but an enormous amount of grief, and there isn’t a manual as to how to separate the hurt and process it. She’s doing her best with parenting, although there are some overreactions and a lot of not listening. But she’s protecting her daughter amidst the secret, which may or may not be the right decision.
When they finally started truly talking, I loved Clara’s insight into her mother’s hurt. I only wish that it would have happened sooner because they were each suffering separately, but again, there is no manual to grief. This doesn’t completely fit the YA category because it’s told in alternating perspectives from Morgan and Clara. While there were aspects of this book I didn’t love, it was one I didn’t want to put down after I started it, so I’m going to check out more of Hoover’s work.
Read this review on Amazon, Goodreads, and Bookbub, give it a like while you’re there.
Regretting You is available on Amazon for $1.99, it’s enrolled in KU.
Blurb:
Morgan Grant and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike.
Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body.
With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris—Morgan’s husband, Clara’s father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.
While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and Clara turns to the one boy she’s been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together
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