A book that portrays a real story about overcoming a loss whose pain is immeasurable. Sometimes we are confronted with a pain so sudden and so intense that, just like that, we see our world in colour become black and white before our eyes. That's what happened to Leah, who found herself groundless in a fraction of a second, becoming a person full of pain, sadness and apathy that led to depression and PTSD, from which she could not let go. When in a twist she ends up living with Axel, her first love, finding herself confronted with a world full of colour, life and feelings, contrary to her own. Leah is forced to deal with the pain, to feel and to overcome all the anguish she holds within herself.

This is a story that holds us from beginning to end - with short chapters, alternated between the past and the present and 2 POV's that give us the perspective of the 2 MC - just as I like 👀

The author's writing is simply addictive, poetic and ravishing, with such fluidity that we find ourselves turning page after page, finding ourselves at the end of the book and asking "now what?!". Yes, there is a GIANT cliffhanger, which leaves us distressed by the future of the two and wanting to know what will happen next.

This story is absolutely beautiful, the simple and natural way it unfolds and turns into pure colour…it is wonderful to read. How they heal and teach each other what it is to feel, love and LIVE, overcoming their greatest demons together.

The references in this book are absurdly spot on 🤌🏻 - the Beatles, the art, the colour, everything makes us enter the story, understand it and live it as if it were ours.

This book is, for me, pure emotion. It makes us experience a thousand and one emotions, hope that everything will be fine and that Leah's world, now gray, will regain the colour it deserves 🥺.

Read and, especially, *feel* their story. But make sure you have the second one at hand because no one can stand that ending 🥵

Thank you netgalley, the author and the publisher for the advance copy to read.

The story follows Leah after suffering the loss of her parents as she navigates living with her brothers best friend Axel. Leah has been in love with Axel for a lifetime.

This was an easy read, there were lots of lovely poignant moments of reflection on slowing down in life. I didn't find myself connecting with the characters as I don't feel we got to know them too much. Leah was quite sullen and hidden away for the first half of the book. I enjoyed that it was told from two points of views the whole way through. Also love the short chapters which always makes reading more enjoyable.

That said it was an ok read, I would happily read a sequel.

3.5 stars.

All That We Never Were by Alice Kellen follows the story of Leah and Axel.

After the sudden death of Leah's parents, Leah struggles to cope with their deaths as she finishes her last year of school. Her brother, Oliver, who has been taking care of her but gets a job opportunity in Sydney, hundreds of miles away. Not wanting to leave Leah alone at home, he asks his best friend, Axel, if he could take care of Leah. Leah moves in with Axel and as they spend more time together Leah starts to feel like herself again with him.

I had mixed feelings about this book. I will start with describing the positives. The book has two of my favorite tropes, age gap (Leah is nineteen and Axel is twenty-nine) and forced proximity. I also liked the way the author broke up the book throughout the months, really showing that trauma like this doesn't disappear within a matter of weeks. She focused on Leah's trauma and gave awareness to the different types of PTSD, specifically the type that Leah has.

However, the negatives of this book is that it had way too many chapters. I know that was done on purpose to signify the passing of time and what was going through the main characters minds but some were so vague that they didn't need to be there. I also didn't like how Axel's own trauma wasn't clearly announced until almost the end of the book.

Besides the positive and negatives I listed, I can't wait to read the next book in the series once I get my hands on a copy of my own. I can't wait to see what happens to Axel and Leah's story, especially the way this book ended.

*Please be aware that this book does deal heavily with emotional topics pertaining to the deaths of family and PTSD.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the premise of the book regarding grieving, learning to find joy after a major loss, and finding love in someone you’ve known for so long. The beginning of the book seemed rather slow for me and took a while to get in to; a lot of the beginning story was background and much more passive plot line. It seemed like a lot of the action and romance hit towards the end and was over before I knew it. I would recommend this to someone who enjoys slow burns and is romance heavy, especially to a fan of the trope of “best friend’s sister/older brother’s best friend”

Really hoped that this would be an amazing book. The story just didn't connect with me. I do thank NetGalley for the ARC. Two stars.

Heart shattering and beautiful, I really enjoyed this book. If you’re looking for a emotional, forbidden love story this is it! Also the cover is gorgeous.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC. Overall this was an ok read. It didn't draw me in as much as I was hoping. I normally finish a book in 2-3 days and this took me almost 2 weeks. I wasn't looking forward to reading more but did want to see how things played out.

Thank you NetGallery for this ARC! It was a good book with a good story(brothers best friend too) but it was slow at times. It also felt as if pieces were missing and one second would be the present and the next it’s the past with no warning. Overall it has potential to being good!!

19 year old Leah has experienced a tremendous trauma losing both her parents in a car accident. Her older brother, Oliver, takes her in, but Leah is not the same girl she was before. After Oliver's work puts him on a temporary work away schedule she moves in part time with her brother's 30 year old best friend, Axel. Axel makes it his mission to bring Leah back to life with tough love. Of course, the more time they spend together, they can't ignore the budding attraction between them. But what will happen when it comes to light?

This book had potential, but I think a few things didn't work. First, this book was translated from Spanish to English. I think some things got lost in translation and the book read choppy. The dialogue also sounded awkward. Second, I didn't love the characters. Leah wasn't fleshed out beyond her trauma. I felt like I knew nothing about her. Axel came off more as a jerk than the grumpy older brother's best friend. I spent more time annoyed with him than loving him. And the supposed attraction from forced proximity? Nowhere to be found. I was hoping for more. This book ends on a cliffhanger. I would be interested to read the end of the story, but wouldn't go out of my way.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

this was easy and quick to read . And sure, it lacked a bit of substance, but I've read worse. Thank you and NetGalley for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I don’t like to not finish a book. Sometimes, very rarely, I have done it before. I try to really give the story and its characters a chance. Writing a novel must be so hard, you out pieces of yourself out there in the world, for everyone to read it. And that is scary.

All That We Never Were by Alice Kellen is about 19-year-old Leah, who lost her parents during a car crash, one she survived. It has been almost a year and Leah is struggling with her grieve, but her (ten years) older brother Oliver is offered a job in Sydney. Not wanting to leave her alone, he asks his best friend Axel to take Leah in and make sure she won’t starve and still go to school. Leah starts to feel again during her time at Axel’s house and is slowly but surely coming to terms with the fact that life won’t ever be the same.


So although I have finished All That We Never Were, it was not for me. It was a big yikes, from the characters that all lost their minds (Justin and Oliver were the only reasonable ones in this whole book) to the storyline of Axel being a whole 10 years older!! Axel gave me the big ick, he is selfish all throughout the novel and the way he is trying to help Leah through her grieve feels like bullying almost… ugh, let me just tell you I would have ran far far away from this man-child, if this was a real situation I would have found myself in.

One of the problems I think lies in the translation from Spanish to English: the conversation between characters does not flow nicely and feels clunky at times. Even just the regular flow of the story feels haphazardly sometimes.

While All We Never Were is not going down as one of my favourite books, I can see that it may be just an issue I had with the characters. If you like flawed characters and just need a read where you really don’t have to think too hard about it, this might be for you.
For me, I finished it, but I was not happy while doing so.

This book was interesting. I did find the relationship/age difference between Leah and Axel odd, especially since Axel is Leah’s brothers best friend. I was definitely surprised by the ending. I found that I had a hard time connecting with the characters, which made reading the book a little difficult. Thank you NetGalley and Alice, and Sourcebooks Casablanca for the ARC!

This book did not resonate with me in the way that I wanted it to. Not to say that the writing is poor, but I feel that there may have been something lost when translating from Spanish to English. This is a different kind of story that involves navigating through loss and grief while also having a romantic storyline. This was not for me but may resonate with other readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for sharing this ARC!

This is the first time I’ve picked Alice Kellen’s book and God! This is so so good. I started to read this story knowing very little about it because I liked the cover but not only the cover but the story was so great. I have found a story of courage, love, friendship, family, surfing, art and music and above all else, moving on.
Leah has just lost her parents in an accident that she has survived. Her brother has to take care of her and he gets a good job in Sydney, so Leah stays at Axel's house, her brother's best friend. Axel is ten years older than Leah and he has always seen her as her little sister.
I've loved Axel’s and Lea’s slow burn love story. I have been frustrated, suffered, laughed, cried and felt all the anxieties. I also loved how the author deals with the issue of loss, grief, depression, anxiety and the whole process that all of us experience when we lose someone we love.

This unfortunately didn’t touch me the way I had hoped it would. The characters are well written but I did not feel a connection to them. I would be willing to read more from this author in the future

Loved this book! Devoured in one sitting. Loved the dynamic and the flow of the story. Thanks for the ARC!

Disclaimer: I received a gifted copy of this book via netgalley and in exchange I'm leaving an honest review.

This book portrays how isolating grief can be, and even how it affects more than just one person. You really don't see that often, it usually centers on the main character and leaves it there. But there are 2 main characters in this book, Axel and Leah.
Gotta be honest, not a big fan of age gaps, and the fact that Axel knew Leah when she was a kid is weird. And the way it keeps getting brought up that he viewed her as a younger sister was also kind icky. But putting that aside for a moment, the book has some heartfelt scenes. I expected this to have a happy ending, but it surprised me with a sad one. I know there's a sequel though coming out next year. Gotta be honest idk if I wanna read that, but nonetheless I want to thank netgalley and Alice Kellen for the opportunity to read this book.

This is my first book from this author, and I when it comes to this story, this one just isn't the one for me. The main characters Oliver, his sister Leah and Axel were okay characters but for the life of me I could not connect with any of the characters. It's hard for me to enjoy a story when I can't connect with the characters or the story, and with that being said, the flow of the story was too slow. There were parts that were redundant, and I was truly asking myself why, when the flow of the story was already so slow. It made wanting to continue the story hard, but I wanted to be able to give my review on a book I read fully. This story also dealt with grief, and it took up the majority of the story. There's no time limit on how long someone should grieve although Axel felt otherwise, but I needed more to happen in this story. Axel took it upon himself to push Leah to do things, mind you, things that even her brother was against with a little force, or should I say demand, and she did them. It was completely unbelievable for me even if she had feelings for him in the past and started to feel something for him in the present. I could even get over the age gap between them, but I didn't feel any type of connection between them that was believable. Oliver had a right to be upset with Axel but even, so I didn't care for the way the book ended. I was really hoping that I discovered a new author for me who's books I would love but this one just wasn't the story for me. Will I read the next book? No. Would I recommend other readers to give this book a try? Yes, and I say that simply because this story wasn't the one for me doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a great story for others. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

I was first drawn in my the cover but the book kept my attention the whole way through.
This is a slow burn romance that deals with grief and mental illness. Leah is a 19 year old girl who is dealing with the grief of losing her parents. Axel is Leah’s brothers best friend. He has known Leah since birth. Axel’s feelings for Leah start to develop in a new way while he is helping her find her way through the darkness.

Tropes
-age gap
-slow burn
-brothers best friend
- friends to lovers
-forbidden love

This one went right to “Did not finish”, I just couldn’t get into it. It just didn’t grab me and keep me entertained.