Al die tijd

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: All This Time

Kyle and Kim have been together since middle school. To Kyle, there can be no one else but her. But on the night of their graduation, Kim decides to call it quits. After so many years together, she wants to find out who she is on her own. And as Kyle realizes he may lose the one person he planned to spend forever with, a car crashes into them ending Kim's life. Kyle is forced to face the horrific truth that Kim is gone.

All This Time is a book steeped in emotion. Kyle experiences such profound grief and guilt over Kim's death. And it doesn't help when his splitting headaches cause flashbacks of the accident or trick him into hearing Kim's voice. Everyone grieves in their own way, and experiencing Kyle's emotions throughout his recovery breaks your heart. But despite everything Kyle goes through, and no matter how low he feels, there is some way or some person that instills hope in him. Even if it is just the smallest little inkling of hope.

But Kyle truly learns to live again when he meets Marley. A quiet girl who's lost her sister and silently grieves. When a chance encounter makes Kyle and Marley cross paths at the graveyard it leads them into a new friendship. Kyle learns how to communicate his own emotions by helping Marley and it was the heartwarming balance needed for such a tragic story. Everything Kyle felt towards Marley, the confusion, the guilt, the need to move forward, felt so real. Readers will be poised on the edge waiting for Kyle to accept his new path in life and allow himself to be happy once again.

And if you enjoy books that throw twists into the plot you never see coming, All This Time should definitely be your next read. The twist completely threw me. I had to stop reading for a minute to process what happened. Then I needed to know where the story would take the characters, and how in the world all the pieces lined up.

All This Time was such a great read. There were so many different elements that kept me reading. It isn't just a story about love and loss. It's about moving on and realizing life can be unpredictable. Sometimes the paths we see ourselves walking aren't the ones we end up on. And it's ok to change what we want to do and where we want to go. I will be sure to read every book Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott write.