Reminders of Him - Review

Reminders of Him

By: Colleen Hoover

Publication: January 18th 2022 by Montlake Romance

335 pages

Genre: Adult, Contemporary

Source: Personal Kindle Library

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Goodreads description--A troubled young mother yearns for a shot at redemption in this heartbreaking yet hopeful story from #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover.

After serving five years in prison for a tragic mistake, Kenna Rowan returns to the town where it all went wrong, hoping to reunite with her four-year-old daughter. But the bridges Kenna burned are proving impossible to rebuild. Everyone in her daughter’s life is determined to shut Kenna out, no matter how hard she works to prove herself.

The only person who hasn’t closed the door on her completely is Ledger Ward, a local bar owner and one of the few remaining links to Kenna’s daughter. But if anyone were to discover how Ledger is slowly becoming an important part of Kenna’s life, both would risk losing the trust of everyone important to them.

The two form a connection despite the pressure surrounding them, but as their romance grows, so does the risk. Kenna must find a way to absolve the mistakes of her past in order to build a future out of hope and healing.

Some personal background first. In 2010 my cousin, who was 21, was involved in a car accident. I don't remember all the intricate details, but he got into a verbal altercation with another person in a parking lot that moved to the road. The two drivers (one being my cousin) we're racing where the other vehicle was driving in the oncoming lane and ended up clipping my cousin's vehicle. The other vehicle wrecked and three occupants died. My cousin left the scene, drove back by, didn't stop and also didn't call 911. He was sentenced to 99 years for three counts of murder and 10 years for leaving the scene of an accident with injuries to be served consecutively after his 99 year sentence. The judge assumed that he had no remorse due to his stoic appearance in court. He is still serving his first sentence in a state prison. He had a three year old daughter and a wife when he was sentenced. He is now divorced, and his ex-wife and daughter have moved to Virginia. I don't know when the last time he's seen his daughter. I have only met her once.

I started reading Colleen Hoover in 2012 when Slammed was available for review on NetGalley. I loved it. And she became an auto-buy author for me. After 20+ books, I feel like I know her writing style to the point where she surprises me less and less even with her books such as Verity and Layla. As a matter of fact, her most recently published books have been my least favorite she's written... until Reminders of Him. This book reminded me of old Colleen Hoover.

Kenna was involved in a car accident with her boyfriend. She was driving. She was under the influence. She thought he was dead. She couldn't find a cell phone, and so she left the scene of the accident. I won't get into more than that with the details because that's part of the story. But she was barely pregnant and subsequently gave birth while incarcerated. Her daughter was taken from her care and placed in the custody of her boyfriend's parents. She has now, 4 years later, been released and hopes to reestablish her connection with her daughter.

Ledger was Scottie, Kenna's boyfriend's, best friend. He wasn't around much when Kenna and Scottie started dating so he'd never met the girl who murdered his best friend. Ledger has spent the last 5 years creating a version of Kenna in his head. Only when he finally meets her in person, not knowing who she is, he slowly comes to find out that she isn't anything he imagined her to be.

The pain in this book was palpable. Every single character is deeply filled with pain. Kenna lost the love of her life and her daughter in and because of one terrible moment and decision. Scottie's parents are so filled with grief that they can't see past their own pain to anyone else's. Ledger is hurting too. He misses his friend, he loves Scottie's parents like his own, he wants to protect Diem (Scottie and Kenna's daughter), and he's falling for the one person he never could have imagined.

Favorite quotes:

-She's quiet, but she's said just enough to make me want the rest of her words.

-It's incredible how two people who have never met can have so many of the same mannerisms.

-It proves that time, distance, and devastation allow people enough opportunity to craft villains out of people they don't even know.

I only had two complaints that I can remember right now. Roman is a side character who happens to have a crush on a married woman. He isn't actively pursuing her. Like he's not asking her out or anything. But he does regularly show up at her bakery to buy cupcakes from her. He's wishing for her marriage to fail. I think this sucks. Obviously these people exist. Not all people, married and unmarried, respect the commitment two people make to each other. But sheesh, I think enough marriages fail on their own without outsiders wishing, hoping, and waiting for their opportunity to swoop in and snatch one party up. I just wish this wasn't included even though it was such a small part of the overall story.

My second complaint is, yet again, Colleen Hoover uses letters as a major plot component. At first I wondered if she was doing this out of like a writing shortcut. You know how a villain will spell out all of their evil plans to the hero of a movie in one big speech. Well, in several of her books I've felt like she uses letters as big information drops. And she does that again in Reminders of Him. I can't say CoHo is reading my reviews of her books, but I honestly felt like she was almost using the letters in Reminders of Him to spite me. That's very conceited of me, I realize. So what I think is the more likely option is that she's doing it on purpose. Maybe this is becoming a calling card of hers or something. Like she's seeking out opportunities to include letters in her books rather than using them as a crutch to dump information. I would still like to see her write a book that doesn't include a letter like these, but we'll see.

Reminders of Him was my favorite Colleen Hoover release in the last several years. This blows Verity and Layla and especially Regretting You out of the water. I used to feel a little apathetic towards her books due to repetition and the big reveal being more important than the journey, but Reminders of Him renewed my Colleen Hoover enthusiasm. The similarities and differences to my own cousin's life and accident made this all the more relatable to me. Reminders of Him gets 5 Stars. Have you read Reminders of Him? What did you think? Let me know!