‘Before I Let Go’ – Marieke Nijkamp

I’d really enjoyed This is Where it Ends, so was excited to be authorised to read an ARC of this by NetGalley and the publishers. Unfortunately, it didn’t hold quite the same appeal.

While the story focuses on some interesting topics – mental health, sexuality, suicide – it’s not the kind of book I think I’ll remember much about later. A bit like The Smell of Other People’s Houses there was something that jarred with me.

Our main character, Corey, has been at boarding school for a few months, and she’s desperate to get back to Lost Creek (her remote Alaskan village of 247 residents). Unfortunately, just before her scheduled return she gets the news that her best friend is dead.

Corey returns home, but she is treated as an outsider. People don’t talk to her, she is convinced she hears strange things outside her room and she can’t reconcile what she remembers of the place with what is in front of her months later. Nothing is as she left it, and though she has questions about what happened to her friend, nobody seems willing to give her answers. Corey is determined to find out what happened, but she isn’t aware of what price she may have to pay.

The depiction of the Alaskan village was atmospheric, but we got very little about the other characters which made it hard to understand their motivation. The timeframe jumped all over the place, and this gave everything a disjointed feel that I found off-putting.