Review: "The Edge of Always" by J.A. Redmerski

He was taking the long road. She was taking the road to nowhere. It just so happened that they led to the same place… When everything falls apart, love remains . . . THE EDGE OF ALWAYS Camryn Bennett has never been happier. Five months after meeting on a Greyhound bus, she and her soul mate Andrew Parrish are engaged—and a wedding isn’t the only special event in their future. Nervous but excited, Camryn can’t wait to begin the rest of her life with Andrew – a man she knows in her heart will love her always. They have so much to look forward to—until tragedy blindsides them. Andrew doesn’t understand how this could happen to them. He’s trying to move on, and thought Camryn was doing the same. But when Andrew discovers Camryn is secretly harboring a mountain of pain and attempting to numb it in damaging ways, there is nothing he won’t do to bring her back to life. Determined to prove that their love can survive anything, Andrew decides to take Camryn on a new journey filled with hope and passion. If only he can convince her to come along for the ride…

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this book.

I was soooooooo happy when I received this book for review.  I think I squealed, and I'm not much of a squealer!  But then I read it (picture me with a sad-looking frown on my face).

At 30%, this is what I wrote:

"Having a hard time seeing where this is going.  It feels very slow, especially in comparison to "The Edge of Never".  There's no sense of the urgency I felt when reading "The Edge of Never".  With that book, even though I had some issues with the writing, I was able to overlook them because I was so drawn in by the story.  I could barely put it down, I just HAD to know what was going to happen next!  "The Edge of Always" is very put-downable, and Camryn and Andrew don't have the same pull on me as before.

At 58%, this is what I wrote (and this would be considered spoilerish, so if you are planning to read this book, skip ahead to the next page break):

"Just finished reading the part where Camryn and Andrew get drugged, and I don't know, it just doesn't strike me as authentic.  Here's what I thought SHOULD have happened - Andrew only thinks he was drugged.  Really, he has another brain tumour and that's why he's hallucinating.  Camryn wakes up to him getting into a fist fight over something that didn't really happen!  And then she starts to worry.  I think that would have been much better.  Or how 'bout this?  The cop pulls over, and instead of just chatting with them and letting them go, he arrests Andrew for assault?  But no, what we've got here is a series of crises that get wrapped up very quickly and simply.  And really, I'm starting to get bored by it all."

Later on in the book, there's a section where Camryn realizes that she can't go back in time and recreate the amazing experience she and Andrew had in New Orleans, and by trying to do so only resulted in tainting those great memories. That's basically how I feel about this book.  By reading it, I've only tainted the memory of my reading experience with "The Edge of Never". I almost feel like this book should not have been written. But that's pretty harsh.  I guess I'm just really disappointed.  

My rating: