I was really looking forward to reading this book, as I quite enjoyed This Is Where It Ends. However . . . as I got more and more into this book, it left me mostly confused. Is it a thriller? A tale of psychological suspense? A mystical story? I would have been OK with the first two but, unfortunately, it seemed to fall into the realm of mystical, which is NOT in my wheelhouse AT ALL. I just didn't buy into the whole seeing the future thing and, while I could kind of get on board with the Stepford vibe the town exuded, I wasn't sold on it. I WANTED it to be creepy, but it came across as just plain weird.

I didn't care for Corey's character and that in itself was a big problem, because this book was ALL about Corey. I applaud the author on her diverse characters and I *think* she did a good job in portraying the effects of bi-polar disorder (although my experience is nil, so perhaps others with more experience in this area feel differently). I do think that the author captured how difficult being different in a small town can be, particularly for teenagers.

When a teen in a small town dies under mysterious circumstances, her best friend tries to find out what happened. The residents of the town resist all inquiries, leaving the friend to wonder whether something more sinister is afoot. Author Marieke Nijkamp’s second novel contains a weak storyline that tries to skate on its intensity in Before I Let Go.

The 200 or so residents of the town of Lost Creek, Alaska, don’t approve of outsiders. Or anyone different. Or anything that goes against everything the town has stood for in all the decades it’s existed. That’s why Corey Johnson finds some relief when her mother gets a job in another city and they move away.

In some ways, leaving Lost Creek feels like a foreign concept. Corey can’t stand the thought of separating from Kyra Henderson, her best friend since time immemorial. But she does want to get away from the oppression of small-town life, which she’s experienced firsthand. Ever since Kyra’s official diagnosis of bipolar disorder, the town’s residents treat Kyra like a pariah. They ostracize her from town life and give her a wide berth when she walks down the street. Corey knows she’s Kyra’s first line of defense, but the effort to remain so is exhausting her.

She thinks about Kyra constantly, but a new school and new friends begin to occupy her time more and more. Anyway, nothing has changed in Lost Creek since the town’s founding, so Corey has no doubt that everything will remain status quo until her next visit back. When she gets the phone call, then, that Kyra has died, everything Corey knows about Lost Creek comes into question.

Corey rushes home expecting the town’s residents to be relieved that Kyra is gone. What she gets is a town that reveres Kyra and her art. Corey tries to confront various people, including Kyra’s parents, about the sudden change of heart towards her gentle friend. No one has any concrete answers about anything, including how or why Kyra died, and the more Corey digs the more she learns that Lost Creek really is lost in more ways than one.

Author Marieke Nijkamp’s first book This Is Where It Ends offered readers a compelling plot that follows students at a school under the threat of a shooter. She maintains the same level of tension in Before I Let Go but lets down her characters as well as the readers with a plot that doesn’t measure up to the premise proposed. While it’s easy to understand the stereotypical wariness small-town citizens harbor for anything out of the ordinary, Nijkamp can’t quite make a convincing argument about why those same citizens would suddenly turn on one of their own.

The hostile behavior of the residents of Lost Creek feels forced. Readers will understand Corey’s relief at leaving, and the subsequent guilt that follows, but when Corey comes back to Lost Creek to look into Kyra’s death the town turns on her too. Again, the hostility seems almost thrust upon Corey, as if no other antagonist would have sufficed in the plot.

Nijkamp seems to want to tackle several subjects all at the same time, and in doing so she sacrifices full commitment to any one of those topics. Corey leaves and Kyra stays, but no satisfying explanation is offered as to why that particular event makes the town embrace Kyra without question. Smart readers might wonder whether Corey was the problem all along, and if she’s got a great new life in a new city then they might ask what the big deal about the way Lost Creek treats Kyra is after all. Everything works out in the end, more or less.

Fans of Nijkamp’s previous book might want to pick this one up; her writing is solid is ever and she offers some lovely turns of phrase. But for the most part, Before I Let Go is Bordering on Bypass it.

I had read ‘This is Where It Ends’ by this author and found it a very different story but real page turner that kept me engaged throughout so I jumped at the opportunity to read this. Unfortunately, it just didn’t work quite as well for me, but that could be just because I tried reading it over the festive season and it really doesn’t go with the celebrations - so don’t let me put you off giving it a go!

Growing up in Lost Creek, Alaska, Corey and Kyra were inseparable best friends. When Corey moves away, she makes her bipolar friend promise to stay strong until she returns. Unfortunately, life gets in the way of them keeping in regular touch but then Corey has a call to inform her that Kyra’s body has been found under the ice in a nearby lake - a lake that should have been frozen solid, one she shouldn’t have been able to end up under the ice. Corey goes back to Lost Creek to find out just what happened to her friend. Can she uncover the truth? Can she get the community to open up and reveal their secrets, now they’re treating her as an outsider? What are they hiding?

This is an intriguing story, a YA mystery that involves community secrets, suspense, danger and life threatening scenarios. Through it new relationships develop but who can be trusted? Who is in danger? Who is the danger? Why? So many questions - you’ll have to read it yourself to discover the answers!

I requested and received a copy of this novel, via NetGalley. This is my honest review after choosing to read it.

I received a free copy from NetGalley. I didn't put this one down and read it in just two sittings (the kids wanted to eat). Told in both current events and in flashbacks. Set in small town Alaska. I did have a few unanswered questions at the end. It was a gripping tale of young adults growing up and facing their choices and the results of their actions while dealing with mental health.

After reading and loving This Is How It Ends I was super excited when Netgalley approves my request for this book. It is similarly dark, but in my opinion a bit confusing, because of the back and forth between now and various times in the past. It was a weirdly good book (I know that’s a strange description, but to understand what I mean you would need to read it yourself), and if not for the slightly confusing way it’s written I’d have given it 5 stars. I wish we had seen more interaction between Corey and Aaron since he didn’t seem as crazy as the rest of the townspeople, as well as with Sam and Roshan. It was still very good and I’d recommend it if you are into dark, psychological style storytelling.

Summary: After Corey’s best friend, Kyra, suddenly dies, Corey heads back to her hometown in a remote part of Alaska to attend the funeral and say goodbye. However, it quickly becomes clear that things aren’t as they seem. The town has more secrets than when she left and Corey is now considered an outsider.

The first few pages were such unrealistic dialogue that I nearly gave up on reading it immediately. While the dialogue improves and the content wasn’t as horrible as those first few pages suggested, it was still a subpar book.

The plot doesn’t have much of a point and the climax felt forced. Nijkamp attempts to mix in a small supernatural element into a mostly normal world, but it doesn’t flow. She couldn’t find that sweet balance and so there’d be times where the townspeople would act weirdly synchronized like a horror movie but it was supposedly still part of the normal in reaction to the supernatural. It didn’t make sense because then the characters went too far.

Nijkamp also threw in some weird elements. There was present day and the occasional flashbacks, which was plenty, but then there were a few weird moments thrown in around halfway through where the narrator completely threw you out of the narrative and it was observing from above. Adding this third thing in was a bad idea and added nothing to the story.

It felt as if Nijkamp couldn’t decide between how horror/mystery she wanted to go with and so it didn’t work at all.

Characters weren’t developed enough. We had a good amount of Kyra through flashbacks, but I truly didn’t care about anybody else or felt like I knew enough about them or their motives. It had potential to develop quirky characters in a town as small as Lost Creek, but it never worked itself up to that.

Overall, this was not a book I enjoyed. Nothing flowed and I really wouldn’t suggest it.

I really wanted to enjoy Before I Let Go especially after how wonderful This Is Where It Ends was. Unfortunately, I struggled to find any connection with the characters or even the story. I feel the plot was missing something and had a hard time getting into the story enough to finish.

I really wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did. I did still enjoy the book but there were a couple of things that really did decrease my enjoyment.
I really still like the message about the book and that the main character and a few others do not change their conviction that suicide is not the answer and that Kyra needed help. I really did not like the way the townspeople almost had a hive mind. I've been in small towns and that's never the case. It was the one thing to me in the story that just felt glaringly supernatural or something with no real explanation. I'm conflicted about Kyra's parents. I like the struggle scene between Mr. H and Corey but a teen is old enough to make people question her story and then investigate. I can't imagine people finding Lost normal when they went to investigate.
Overall, it was still an enjoyable read, I just really wish they would have had some explanation or actual reason why the town of Lost acts the way they do. I would have bumped it up at least to 4 stars at that point. Still, I'd read it again and any book that works to rid the world of the stigma around mental illness is good.

I would like to thank the publisher, author, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Before I Let You Go was such an unexpected surprise. I knew, from Nijkamp's first novel, that I'd like the writing style but I was wholly unprepared for the content. It was atmospheric, and eerie, and such an ode to grief and friendship and storytelling and it left me feeling a little haunted by the end. The way that the story unfolded was so visual and interesting that I felt like I could see it in my minds eye--and I kept thinking again and again that this would make a really great film.
This is another Marieke Nijkamp book that will definitely find itself on my classroom library and I have a feeling that it will be borrowed often.

Rarely have I been at such a loss for words regarding how to write a review. I loved the format of this book with its short chapters and letters throughout which served to make this an extremely quick read. Also contributing to being a quick read—my inability to put it down. I knew that I could NOT go to work tomorrow wondering what was going to happen in this book so I read my little heart out today.

This book was right up my alley as I really enjoy suspense/thrillers. The psychological aspect of this book completely freaked me out. I had many theories in different places of this book and none of them were the full tale by a long shot.

I feel that this is all that I can say without spoilers.

Thank you, Netgalley and Source Books Fire, for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I really, really wanted to like Before I Let Go, especially since I loved the Author's first book This Is Where It Ends. But I just wasn't able to get into it. I didn't feel any connection to the characters, and I felt like I was starting in the middle of the story. For me, it just didn't work. I always felt like I was missing something and nothing I was reading was allowing me to get it and to catch up. I ended up having to DNF this one.

I didn’t finish this one, I gave it a try but it just wasn’t for me. Something about the authors writing style just wasn’t sitting right with me. As an avid reader of mystery/thrillers I have trouble with YA ones and I think that’s what happened here.

I just read one of the worst fictions about mental illness I've ever read. Worst...not as in terribly written...but as in most incredibly triggering.

Seriously, if you are going through any kind of episode, steer far clear of Before I Let Go. But more on that in a second.

Let's start with the premise:  Corey is getting ready to head back to her tiny, out of the way hometown in Alaska, when she finds out her best friend has killed herself. She knew Kyra's bipolar disorder had been getting worse, but she had been hoping to make it back in time to help. Instead, Corey finds the to find Lost changed by the tragedy...just not in the way she expected.

You know when you watched Jordan Peele's Get Out, and the whole time you just felt torn between throwing the TV out the window, and needing to rescue Chris from the horrible nightmare unfolding around him? That's how I felt the entire time I was reading Before I Let Go. It's the same kind of "social commentary horror," only regarding mental illness stigma instead of racism. The whole thing is just spooky as all get out.

It left me with a lot of mixed feelings. The biggest one, obviously, is that it's triggering as fuck. If you have bipolar disorder, depression, or any suicidal tendencies at all, you need to be very very careful with this book. The townspeople are constantly talking about how "it was her time" in regards to her suicide. It makes sense in context to the plot, but it's a pretty slippery slope.

There's also a really big plot hole regarding time slipping that I couldn't figure out. Every so often Corey would come across places that were dusty and abandoned...but then later they were normal?  Or there would be whispering and writing on walls. It's almost as if there was supposed to be a ghost or another piece to the story that got left out. I felt like I was missing something but I never did find it.

I'd be amiss if I failed to recognize the LGBTQIA+ representation:  in this tiny out of the way town, we have pansexual, asexual, and gay characters.

Even though there were some holes and triggers, I liked the book. Again, it has that sort of Get Out sort of commentary, that makes you look at mental illness from a different angle--or maybe the same angle but just shines the light on stigma a little brighter than we're used to. Before I Let Go cages that stigma in a tiny environment where it can only grow in one direction or the other, and Nijkamp is such a great storyteller that it works.

First off, thank you to Sourcebooks and NetGalley for providing me a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The premise of this book, a girl named Corey goes back to a small Alaskan town only to find her best friend Kyra mysteriously died days before and the town is acting very strangely, made it sound like it'd be a psychological thriller tinged with mystery and YA contemporary. Broadly, I suppose that's what it was but everything was poorly executed.

The psychological thriller elements felt like you were being clubbed to death with the same nonsensical creepiness of small town folks who refused to talk about Kyra's death and only said, over, and over, and over again to Corey that she "didn't understand" or "couldn't understand" because she was "an outsider." Sure. Seems plausible.

The mystery was never really a mystery because it was clear from the get go what had happened to Kyra. The exact circumstances were blurry but you knew what had happened so... where's the mystery?

The YA contemporary was the least bad of the elements here but it was still not done well. The dialogue was boring and often rehashed what had been said before. Scenes were so similar that you ended up feeling like you weren't moving along. The letters from Kyra all basically said the same thing. This book could have been 30 pages long.

What was good about this book, was the representation of diverse characters. Despite the town having a population of 247, there were gay, pansexual, asexual characters. Not much in terms of racial diversity but considering this is a town somewhere in Alaska with a population lower than my High School graduating class, I think that wasn't too bad.

Ultimately, the book was a drag for me. Everything felt redundant and repetitive, and redundant and repetitive (Gilmore Girls reference, couldn't help it). The ending was so dramatic and unbelievable that I just sat there laughing like a crazy person. It was never explained why 200 and forty some people would unanimously agree to act deranged and why they would believe something (trying to avoid a spoiler here) so stupid with such zeal as to explain away a girl's death as if it were nothing. People just don't act like that. They need reasons and these characters never had any that actually made sense.

Honestly, I struggled with Before I Let Go. The short, disjointed chapters and the mix of real time, memories, flashbacks, and ghostly occurences distracted me. I was never able to get to the point where I was totally immersed in the book and just could not put it down.. My guess is that Before I Let Go will have a loyal following, but that readers will be polarized and will either love it or hate it.

Let me start off by saying Marieke Nijkamp can write! I've read "This is Where it Ends" which discusses a school shooting and now "Before I Let Go" and both books have not disappointed. Nijkamp is a very talented writer who is able to make a novel very lyrical and poetic, without having lyrics or poems. "Before I Let Go" turned into something I was not expecting, but I still really enjoyed the book. We live in a world where mental illness is a major issue. People are committing suicide and even killing people because they are not getting the help they need. I love that people are finally talking about mental health issues in books! Kyra, one of the main characters, killed her self, or at least that's what the town says. Kyra's story (or part of it) is not unique. I hope novels like this will bring more awareness to the issue and get people to ask for help. As for the story itself, I was thrown for a loop. I was not expecting that ending. I also have no plans to ever visit Lost Alaska (I doubt it exists anyway). The town of Lost scares me. In a way this book was more terrifying than some horror novels I read since the town seems like cult. Ahhh! Creepy! I was captivated with the story from page one and was unable to stop reading until the very end. Great job on another novel Marieke! I can't wait for the next one!

Before I Let Go is a dark novel about one town that pretty much loses its collective mind. Fitting then that the town happens to be called Lost. What Corey finds upon her return to this remote Alaskan community is anything but normal and difficult to believe. Set during early spring in northern Alaska, when the sun returns but only briefly, the entire tone of the novel is disturbing as the answers Corey seeks prove to be dangerous to find.

It takes a lot to rattle me, but rattle me Before I Let Go did. The townspeople's actions towards Corey are not just discomforting but downright sinister. It is difficult to envision an entire town ganging up on one of their own, making threats, and going out of their way to cause as many problems for the returnee as possible, and yet this is what happens to Corey. The unbelievability of it all as well as the sinister undertones make for damn uncomfortable reading.

Corey adds to your discomfiture by being a rather whiny character. She is completely unable to accept the truth until it is almost too late, long after you have already figured out what happened. Her unwillingness to see what is right in front of her is frustrating, especially as it causes her to make some poor choices. She also spends a lot of time contemplating her friendship and what it means to be a friend. We do get some good insight out of this, especially as it pertains to someone with a mental illness. However, the rest of the novel does not fit with this more internalized story. It is as if in Corey, the author tried to create a story within a story even though the two clash more than blend.

My overall problem with Before I Let Go is that I have no idea what it is meant to be. Is it a cautionary tale about friendship? Is it a thriller? Is it supposed to be realistic? Is it just supposed to be entertaining? Throwing me off even more is the introspection Corey does as she tries to learn more about what happened to Kyra. Does this make it a coming-of-age story? I just do not know, and this bothers me. I usually enjoy stories that cross multiple genres at once, but this leaves me perplexed. The two stories - why/how did Kyra die and how Corey is handling it - are not tightly woven together but appear as separate and distinct. Add in the creepy and highly unrealistic town transformation and you have a novel that is as confusing as it is disturbing.

The townspeople and their actions are so creepy and the story is so dark that I finished Before I Let Go with a sigh of relief and thankful to be able to put it behind me. This is not because the story is shocking. The answers, when you finally obtain them, are not much of a surprise even if they are as odd as you suspect they will be. I suspect my relief was more due to the fact that I was done with this weirdly unrealistic novel masking as contemporary fiction and could move on to more pleasant reading, which is not how you should ever want to feel finishing any story.

2 1/2, rounded to 3?

Cory comes home after the apparent suicide of her best friend to find her itty bitty Alaskan hometown had changed. The townspeople who had avoided Kyra, who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, were now idolizing her in memorial. Cory quickly realizes a few things: it wasn't a simple suicide, and her fellow Lost townspeople had something to do with it. Sadly, I feel like Ms. Nijkamp didn't go far enough with the story. It was as though she wanted the reader to understand that there was more, but she wasn't going to state it straight out in the story. That left a not-quite-fulfilled feeling at the end of the book. Additionally, somewhat at random, Ms. Nijkamp changed from presenting the story in narration to a play script. Not sure why, but as I've said before, I am not a fan of "experimental" books.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the opportunity to read and review Before I Let Go by Marieki Nijkamp! Corey receives news of the drowning of her best friend, Kyra, and she travels back to Lost Creek to mourn her death and discover how she drowned in the middle of winter when the water is frozen several feet deep. Corey is treated like an outsider because she’s been attending a boarding school away from Lost Creek, so they disregard her questions and concerns. Corey’s determination reveals more than she ever wanted to know about the downward spiral of Kyra’s mental health and the ignorance and selfishness of the people of Lost Creek! 4 stars for a poignant look at bipolar disorder and the struggles of the sufferer and the coping mechanisms of the people closest to them.