Before You Go by Clare James

Have you ever noticed that if you read a book and in your head the male love interest has the same voice as John Mayer, everything is just so much better? Or even better picture the guy as John Mayer altogether.



I have a thing for the dark broody musicians. You know what they say about guys that play guitar right? Good with their hands. Noah the male protagonist in this book plays the guitar. Ooolala. Although the more broody character in this books is definitely Tabby in my opinion. Noah has some mysteriousness to him and I feel like we should have learned more about him by the end of the book. I still have a lot of questions. Then there is this whole thing with Tabby and her bad experience with being drugged and all the stuff she went through, so we definitely learn more about her then we do about Noah and I think that's why I wish we had read some of the book from his point of view. It is all from Tabbys POV and I have no problems with that normally...if I get a clear understanding of both charaters but I didn't get that from this book. The other thing is...there was no real high point of the book. I feel like it needed something bigger. It was a bit anticlimactic. I thought for sure Noah's ex would try to chop Tabby into tiny pieces and hide them under her bed or at least something! But nope. What actually does happen for the climax I find lackluster. Almost boring. No one wants a boring climax guys. Or a lackluster one at that. It's depressing.



There were things I liked about both charaters. I like that Tabby is a dancer. I use dance as an outlet too so I connected with her on that level. I found Noah's religious beliefs intriguing. All of them. Like, every religion he has. The actual story/plot is good. I just think there needs to be more to the story, more to Noah, and a better high point to the book. The book has been compared to Colleen Hoover and Tammara Webber, and I unfortunately cannot second that because I feel that this book is merely a shadow of something those two authors are capable of. I do feel the writing is similar to the style both authors use and with some work Clare James could get on their level. It's not far off she just need something more.

3 Stars.
An advanced readers copy was provided to me by the publishers in exchange for a honest review. This has in no was effected my rating on this book or the overall review.