NOTE TO READERS: IMO This novella is best read after you’ve finished reading Ten Tiny Breaths or after you finish the series.
Okay let me tell you a quick story.
Back in 2014 I read Ten Tiny Breaths, because I wasn’t about to meet K. A. Tucker having not read any of her books yet. Then the rest of the series came out, then the prequel novella, In Her Wake came out.
Flash-forward to 2016 and I’m ready to pick up this series again. I pick up the novella, read it and then I sit there going, “I don’t remember the story…fuddddggggeeee.”
I haven’t read too many novellas, probably because I prefer to read a physical book rather than an ebook, but let me just say that if a novella around a hundred and fifty pagesish can make me feel THAT DEEPLY, you are definitely doing something right! I’ve never read something with so much grief… Maybe because I tend to stay away from sad novels because I’m an extremely empathetic person, but that was…that was moving (and maybe in some ways just a TEENY TINY BIT creepy 😛 ).
You never know which day will be your last. Every now and then you think about your future with your best friends, how you’ll grow old and still be cool in your old age – how you’ll remember all the fun times you had when you were young. Well sometimes life can take a turn and suddenly you have to face the world and your future alone. That’s what happened to Cole Reynolds. One mistake, one choice, one action, changed his life, the life of those around him, and the life of Kasey Cleary. Why should he have survived when his two best friends died? How could he possibly go on without them? Cole’s world spirals into a deep dark hole that even he can’t seem to crawl out of, but in time he finds purpose again, and perhaps he’ll be able to feel normal.
“I destroyed her life and then got caught in her wake.
And I realize now that it’s exactly where I’m meant to be.”
The novella is short but extremely consuming. I just ate up every word and felt every pang of sadness in Cole after the accident that would change his life forever. How do you go on without your best friends? Just thinking about it now… I don’t even know how I’d manage it.
This story isn’t sad per-say, and it isn’t about feeling helpless, it’s about regretting mistakes and learning to find purpose again.
As happy as I am for someone in deep depression to find their purpose in life again…I don’t know if I would go about it the same way Cole does…. I mean I get what he’s trying to do but at the same time it’s sort of, kinda, creepy. I can’t tell you! You’ll just have to read it for yourself.
But as for the novella, it was a beautiful follow-up/prequel to the series (as Tucker wrote it after the series was complete). Definitely worth reading!
5/5 Hearts of Love