Oh my goodness. This was perfect in every way.
The plot, the characters, writing. Perfection.
So thankful I was given the chance to read this one early!

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the ARC.

"Out of the Woods" by Hannah Bonam-Young is an emotional, heartfelt gem that left me reeling in the best way. I devoured this second installment in the “Out on a Limb” universe, and wow, Sarah and Caleb’s story is unforgettable. Huge thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publishers, Dell Romance & Random House, for this ARC—this one’s going straight to my favorites shelf!

Sarah and Caleb, high school sweethearts turned married couple of 17 years, find themselves at a crossroads when Sarah questions her identity outside of their relationship. After a failed fundraising gala for her late mother and Caleb’s well-intentioned but ill-received rescue, they embark on a rugged couples’ retreat, determined to reignite their connection.

The *marriage-in-crisis* trope is handled with such authenticity here, blending gut-wrenching moments with laugh-out-loud humor. Caleb’s unwavering love and Sarah’s quest for self-discovery create a powerful dynamic. The *flashback timeline* beautifully illustrates their history while adding depth to their struggles. Oh, and did I mention there’s a steamy *outdoor scene*? 🔥

This book isn’t just about rekindling love—it’s about finding oneself within a partnership. Equal parts tender, raw, and uplifting, "Out of the Woods" will break your heart and stitch it back together. Don’t miss this. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

**Tropes:**
Marriage-in-crisis
High school sweethearts/second chance
Forced proximity (retreat vibes)
Dual timelines: past and present
Personal growth journey

Prepare to laugh, cry, and fall hard for Caleb and Sarah. ❤️

We met Sarah and Caleb in Out On A Limb, and they were the picturesque best friends who have been together for literally ever. Their story however dives into self growth, growth between a relationship, and how it’s ok to change the path you’re on. They go on a hiking therapy trip, and along the way figure out what isn’t working and how both are trying their very best.

Hannah Boham-Young writes the most incredible stories I think everyone can connect with on some level. I felt this one took me a little longer to be hooked onto, but came out feeling like I had my own level of closure on paths not serving me.

This is not the process of falling in love, it’s about staying together when it is hard and how love shows up in different ways. A great read if you are in a relationship yourself!

I loved this just as much as “Out On a Limb.” If there’s one thing that Hannah Bonham-Young is a master at, it’s creating characters who have so much depth and emotion, and best of all, know how to communicate even through the hard stuff.

Going into this, I thought it would be mostly just a romance, but it was so much more. There were so many lines that I highlighted because they were so applicable. It really made me examine my own mental health, especially in terms of losing a parent to a horrible disease earlier than should happen. Unlike Sarah, my own grief is so fresh, but that’s why I loved reading the flashbacks so much and then seeing how even all these years later, she’s still struggling, but has healed and learned to move forward, which feels so hopeful.

I had a friend recently say that she feels as though books come to you in the right moment when you didn’t even know you needed to read them, and that was so true with this book.

Thank you SO much to NetGalley and Dell Romance for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The theme of two grown adults working through marriage challenges isn’t a trope you often see. So, this was refreshing to see! Overall, I would recommend this one to romance readers! HBY has a way of adding in complex topics like grief, marriage challenges, traumas, etc into her books that make it more realistic for life than a basic HEA.

I do find some inconsistencies with real like and HBY’s books though. In this one, they mentioned a 10 year old being almost in 8th grade…. A 10 year old would be in about 5th grade. The way this particular side character was described just didn’t match with the age she supposedly was.

Lastly, I found the ending to be rushed and thrown in a bit sloppily. Would have loved more about the Mom/Son dynamic as that felt surprising. Maybe an additional 20-30 pages would have gotten the accident/injury wrapped up better than it was? As a reader-I wanted more from that.

4.25⭐️ omg this book had me feeling all the emotions. I loved Sarah and Caleb in out on a limb and I still loved them now. The only thing that lacked for me was the miscommunication trope, but I feel like Hannah was able to write it in a way that you can take something from it and learn from it! I think Hannah has a way of taking the tropes I hate and making an amazing book out of it! I love the whole premise of them going to a retreat in the woods and working together and individually to fix their relationship and personal challenges. I think Sarah’s character growth was amazing and well as Caleb learning that change isn’t always bad.

Hannah does it AGAIN 👏🏼 I’m not sure how she does, other than sheer talent, but she knocked it out of the park & I couldn’t be happier!

Out Of The Woods (OOTW) follows Sarah & Caleb, Win & Bo’s (from Out On A Limb) best friends & pretty much their kindred spirits too 🩶 Sarah & Caleb are high school sweethearts, who have been together for 17 years & have endured so much together. Through major realizations, existential crises and questioning if she’s jumped from one safety net to the other, Sarah finds herself wondering many things about her present life, most importantly wondering if they are truly the same people that got married at nineteen + the impact that has on the present state of their relationship. In an attempt to fix their relationship, Sarah and Caleb make the decision to join a hiking trip intended to guide couples through challenging parts of their relationships. The bigger issue about this trip? The two are not fans of nature!

In Hannah’s true witty, hilarious & page-turning style, OOTW took me on a journey like no other - making me feel incredibly seen & understood. As someone who got married fairly young & almost right after college, dove head first into navigating what life was going to look like when an unexpected turn occurred for my husband (a diagnosis of chronic myeloid leukemia) and all that comes with it - I found that Sarah’s questioning was similar to some I’ve done in my life. Loving my husband with everything in me, while periodically wondering a lot of “what could have been” if we didn’t encounter the challenges we did right off the bat in our marriage. I could resonate with Sarah somewhat in her journey of self-discovery amidst reflection & the beautiful way in which the story was interwoven between those two concepts was astounding to me! Reading this gem of a book was so life affirming & beautiful, reminding me that many things can be true at the same time - and how grateful I am for a spouse who loves me for me while also supporting my growth as an individual. But in the words of Sarah, “If you give me the space to grow, I’ll plant myself next to you. Always.”

Marriage in trouble is a new trope for me. Can't say it's going to be a go-to, but the ups and downs of marriage were beautifully written by HBY. The MMC being named Caleb took me a while to get over as that's my husband's name. I could empathize to Sarah's wonder of who she is without her other half and what she is capable of. Watching Sarah and Caleb fall back in love and learn that the way they used to communicate might not work as they continue to grow up. There was just growth on growth on growth, personally for each character, and together as a couple, which was very well written. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the free eARC. All opinions are my own.

instagram review will be live 22Jan25.

this was such a raw and beautiful story, i wish i had the proper words to really articulate how this book made me feel

you can really tell HBY puts herself and her all into these stories and it pays off TENFOLD

I loved reading the acknowledgments after I finished the book, because I love knowing that the writing of the book affected her as much as the reading of the book affected me 🥰

Sarah and Caleb are high school sweethearts. They married at 19, in the middle of Sarah’s personal trauma, and launched into life a little earlier than most of us do. Over a decade and a half later, they’ve nestled into a routine so contactable they resemble roommates. Sarah feels stagnant - I daresay in the way many at her age do! - and her bestie suggests that she and Caleb go on a couples’ retreat in the woods to reconnect and rekindle what they once had.

This book is tough in a lot of ways - there are CWs (dm me) and tough moments between Sarah and Caleb, but there are also excellent times of reconciliation and two people dedicated to making through a rough patch and choosing each other forever.

HBY, thank you for this beautiful book.

This book was one of my disappointing reads of the end of 2024 and I am still sad about it. I was SO ready to love this. Marriage in crisis is an underrepped trope in my opinion and well this book didn't really even have it honestly.

-the billionaire/millionaire aspect threw me off immediately. This is marketed as something for people who got married young and then grew into themselves and how that affects your partnership (I have direct experience with this) and I know you don't need to relate to a book to enjoy it but the marketing doesn't make sense when they have oodles of money and it almost makes their relationship problems irrelevant. Especially because this book is more about the FMC's grief journey after losing her mom and then never going to therapy about it even though they have a ton of money and she doesn't work outside of managing their house. Her grief journey is SO valid don't get me wrong whether she went to therapy or not but this book is not a marriage in crisis.

-Plot holes: She tells Win at the beginning maybe their marriage should end, but on the trip she repeats to everyone that they were never going to break up, it was only a question if they were going to be happy in the future or not. You JUST said you were thinking of divorce so which is it. When she says she couldn't go to school because he works long hours and they would "never see each other", if he's working long hours then what are you doing?! You'd be at school or studying at the same time he'd be at work!

-The therapy rep was atrocious. She's told not to worry about her problems because she's "young" AND SHE'S COMFORTED BY THAT. That is one of the most invalidating things to say to someone. Also her therapist saying she's "way ahead" of other couples with problems because she only fantasizes of a future with him. Actually intrusive thoughts or even just an active imagination does not mean you don't love your current reality or partner, this way of thinking is so harmful. We don't need to shame others for their thoughts that don't hurt anyone else. And it's not like this therapy is called out for being bad, it is taken as miraculous and they become quasi-friends which is also boundary crossing. It's like when the mom in Next to You dates her grief therapist and everyone thinks it's cute.

-Repetitive flashbacks. There would be flashback chapters of them in high school and then go to present time and she would recap everything we JUST read and it wasn't even interesting in the first place. The flashbacks were also very logistical and didn't even add to the depth of her relationship with her mom, it was clear they were close and she's greatly affected by her death. Also the dialogue and thoughts of her as a minor was giving Dawson's Creek, not accurate to an actual child at all in my opinion, not every author can access that mindset in their writing and that's okay just don't write flashbacks.

-The reconciliation- if they were as close as they claimed they were this could have been solved by conversation 10 years prior.

-The main character was not cohesively developed because the Mitchum Huntzberger of it all with that author she admired as a teen ruining her life was weird to me. With how headstrong she was and confident, she went after the MMC full steam ahead after all which I admired, it didn't make sense for a random stranger to ruin her self confidence to that level for SO long. That storyline was genuinely so confusing.

Thank you to Dell for the chance to read this via eARC. I am so sad how much I disliked this UGH.

Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonam-Young is a heartwarming and humorous tale that will resonate with readers who have ever wondered if their partner is still the same person they fell in love with, and who are looking for a story about the power of self-discovery, love, and the unbreakable bonds of high school sweethearts.

Sarah and Caleb have been together for 17 years, since they were teenagers, and Sarah has come to realize she doesn't even know who she is without Caleb. Everything in her life has revolved around and been attached to him. After Caleb saves Sarah's failed gala fundraiser, their fight ignites buried resentment and unhappiness. Desperate to save a marriage that seems to be falling apart at the seams, they embark on a week-long hiking trip designed to help couples reignite their spark.

I've begun to discover that, while I do of course enjoy swooning over new couples and kicking my feet reading their first everythings, I also love marriage in crisis stories. At least, I love the (very) few that I've read. It's nice to see where couples are years later, after the butterflies and cloud9 feelings of a new love have calmed down a bit. If Hannah can make me adore a one-night-stand-turned-pregnancy story (Out on a Limb), she might be able to make me love anything. Hannah is one of my favorite authors, and I will read absolutely anything she writes.

Sarah and Caleb are so real and realistic, honest and determined. And so in love. Watching them rekindle their relationship as they fumble through the woods and their couple assignments was a joy and an honor. They open up and put their feelings out there, with Sarah's existential crisis and figuring out who she is as a person without Caleb, and Caleb's confusion as to why she's not happy, because he thought that they both were. Their conflict and growth is heartbreaking and beautiful, sexy and sweet, and funny and cute.

I loved the flashbacks from their time together as teens! The ending is also wonderfully satisfying, and the epilogue takes the cake.

Read this if you enjoy marriage in crisis, best friends who are basically sisters, women who own their pleasure, spice, dual timelines, outdoor fun.

The characters from Out on a Limb are also in this one, and while this can be read as a standalone, it's definitely better to read OOAL first.

CWs: Death of parent, terminal illness, grief, injury, blood, hospital stay

I think anyone who has ever been in a committed relationship will be able to relate to so much of the content in this book. It’s a look at two people who love each other so deeply, but also got married really young, before they really knew what life was all about. It’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but it can still always be beautiful and filled with love and passion for your partner if you choose it. Thanks to Dell Romance and Random House Publishing for the e-arc!

4.5⭐️ One of my most anticipated reads of the year, and it did not disappoint! I loved Sarah and Caleb as soon as they were introduced in Out on a Limb, and I immediately wanted their story (not thinking it would actually happen because they were already married.) but then I saw that they were getting a book and I screamed!

This one was full of so many emotions. It seemed so real, and I was happy, sad, anxious, worried, and laughing. I loved seeing them go through real struggles as a married couple and working through them in such a healthy way.

Love love love them💖

This book was so, so, so beautiful. I’m blown away. I finished just a few minutes ago and I’m kind of speechless 😭 Ms Bonam-Young’s best work, in my (very humble) opinion. This story was so heart wrenching while simultaneously being an absolute joy and privilege to read. This is now my top romance novel of all time. I’m just so grateful to have witnessed the love between Caleb and Sarah. What a wonderful experience.

I relate so much to Sarah. Her story has given me so much to think about as someone who constantly feels like they were made for more than what they’re currently doing in life. This book made me laugh, made me cry, and ultimately made me hopeful for my own future.

A GIGANTIC thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this amazing ARC. I am forever changed, genuinely.

Absolutely pure perfection. Wow… where do I even begin. This story was extremely close to my heart and I cried through so much of it. As someone who is married to their high school sweetheart and approaching their 30’s, I closely related to Sarah and Caleb’s story. Their love for each other and the growth they did individually and together throughout the story was beautiful. Their struggles and how they communicated through it all was extremely realistic. I appreciated the rawness and realness that was put into this story. Thank you a million times to Hannah Bonam-Young, Random House Publishing, and NetGalley for this ARC. Thank you specifically to Hannah Bonam-Young for writing a story that is so near and dear to my heart.

My review was posted to goodreads on 1/11/2025.

3.5? i love sarah and caleb. i think their love for each other runs so deep and its so nice seeing a real relationship in romance books. unfortunately, this was really slow for me to get into. i felt like i was waiting for something up until the 55% mark but then it got really good! sarah’s brain is quite relatable and felt like her conflicts within herself were so raw and true.

thank you netgalley!!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75/5

This. Book. Caleb Linwood, the man that you are. Just like Out on a Limb, Bonam-Young approached this story with a unique and yet powerful prospective on an otherwise uncommon trope.

I was surprised to find how much I genuinely enjoyed watching Caleb and Sarah reconnect and rediscover how to communicate without it being your typical second chance romance. This story was the perfect palette cleanser between some heavier books, while still being full of depth and easily satisfying that romantic element that we all know and love. Watching Sarah not only fall back in love with Caleb, but discovering who she is, and what’s important to her resonated so much with me. There was so many moments where I was nearly brought to tears over just feeling so seen. Caleb had so many beautiful moments of forgiveness, but also so much growth in his own self as well. Overall such a wonderful story of rediscovery, and reconnecting to the ones who have been with us for as long as we can remember.

There’s so many incredible quotes but here’s 3 of my favorites:
•“You can go as far as you need to, but you’ll always be a part of me. You will always be the second voice in my head. The force that surrounds me. The source I pull inspiration from.”
•“Because she doesn’t have to be all right. She just has to try again tomorrow.”
•“We hugged without resolution. There was no bow tied neatly around our conversation. No clean cut answers. Just a mutual understanding that the pain would always exist but that we’d be a little stronger tomorrow. That, maybe, I’d helped her some.”

I would highly recommend this book to everyone! My only reason for giving it 4.75 stars instead of 5, is because I didn’t personally connect to the comments about religion, though I can still see their importance.

firstly, thank you to the publisher for an arc!

i absolutely adored out on a limb and DEVOURED it in an instant, so when i found out there would be a companion novel about sarah and caleb i prayed to the netgalley gods to bequeath an arc to me. alas, the gods were merciful and i devoured out of the woods as well.

this is not a romance novel about a married couple giving their marriage a second shot — it’s about a couple who got married young in a strenuous circumstance, and now our fmc sarah looks back and feels as if she has not accomplished anything on her own, without the help of her husband caleb. when sarah hosts a fundraiser in honor of her mom and finds out that caleb was the anonymous benefactor who donated the remaining money to meet her goal, the couple’s relationship is the worst it’s ever been. thus begins their journey into the woods to learn how to communicate better.

i don’t think i’ve ever cried as much as i have while reading out of the woods — sarah’s mom passed away in her late teens, and we get so many flashbacks with sarah, her mom, and even caleb and win. anytime sarah brought up her mom, i cried. i can’t help it!

overall, out on a limb and out of the woods are MY FAVORITE romance novels because they tackle so much more than romance.

i’m so excited to read whatever hannah bonam-young puts out next💗