3.75.
I was really intrigued by Sarah and Caleb after seeing their relationship and friendship to the MCs in Out on a Limb, so this was very exciting to pick up! I really enjoyed the exploration of diving into the struggles married couples may face, especially if they married very young, and I think Sarah and Caleb's love was so special and pure. With that being said, I did struggle with their conflicts in this because it felt less "marriage in crisis" and more like "Sarah in crisis." The stakes felt extremely low to me and there wasn't a single time in this book I thought they would face divorce simply because it felt like the major disconnect in this book came from Sarah's own disappointments within herself and not necessarily within her marriage. I really just wanted them to talk to each other more effectively, but I'm glad we eventually got there.

I loved this book! I could relate to the characters getting married young. As they got older they started to drift apart but they still loved eachother. The characters go camping and find themselves again. This book was sweet with spice. I was smiling through the book.

Out of the Woods is not my first Hannah Bonam-Young book and it won't be my last! She is a local author to me(I would love to meet her) and I enjoy her writing style. This novel was a bit of a departure for her I feel. She always tells a great story with character development but, this time it wasn't as spicy as usual. I identified with the main characters Sarah and Caleb with their long term relationship challenges and the premise of the story was engaging. I look forward to reading more from Hannah.

Thank you Net Galley, Hannah Bonam-Young and Random House Ballantine for the opportunity to preview this title. The opinions shared are my own.

Out of the Woods is expected to be released Jan. 28, 2025.

I don’t know if there’s enough worlds in the English language to convey how much I love Sarah and Caleb’s story. While in Out on a Limb they come off as the friends who have everything together in this you can see how much these characters go through. This one is going to live rent free in my head for a while.

This was a stunning composition of communication, healing, and community. To see two people continually choose each other was so so beautiful. HBY knows how to capture complete ADORATION in her writing. Loved it immensely.

⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5

“Hope, in my experience, is a dangerous feeling, but I’ll choose to feel it anyways.” —Out of the Woods, the Queen HBY

Thank you to NetGalley and Dell/Random House books for letting me read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Out of the Woods absolutely delivered. I was skeptical at first as I’ve never read a romcom with the trope that the couple was already married and the romance was their reconnection. There was so much healing in this book, not just in Sarah and Caleb’s relationship with one another, but Sarah’s relationship with herself and her grief.

Also, Hannah’s note in the foreword made me feel all sorts of things:

“Out of the Woods is my love letter to all of us who met their soulmate before they had the chance to fully meet themselves. I wanted to write a story that reflected the delicate dance of being madly, deeply in love with your significant other but desperately seeking independence, evolution, and change. It's also for all of us who, following a traumatic event, felt frozen in time.”

This is simply a masterpiece. Dare I say her best yet??? The world is in for such a treat with this book and the love and care Hannah pours into Sarah and Caleb. Hannah Bonam-Young is a beautiful gift to this world and should be treasured and cherished.

Oh. My. Goodness. This book. Wow.

As someone who was married young and has been with her husband for almost two decades, this book was so real to me. I can see so much of my husband in Caleb and myself in Sarah. I related to the characters so much. It was raw and honest and emotional and had so much heart. There were some heavy topics and it was just written so well.

I’d give it more than 5 stars if I could!

Thank you so much to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group— Ballantine and Netgalley for the advanced copy!

November was the month of amazing arcs! I got a HBY book! I was so excited when I got the email and I had to move it up the tbr. (I had no control)

Fun fact: this is the first Hannah Bonam Young book I’ve physically read as opposed to listened to. I listened to Set the Record Straight around the holiday season last year and gobbled up her other books fairly quickly. I loved them all so much I needed physical copies of them.

Marriage in crisis books can be hard. I think that’s a universal truth all authors even acknowledge. But this just like opened up my soul. Add in a strong mother/daughter relationship told in flashbacks and I definitely cried. My heart.

I enjoyed that this was just from Sarah’s pov(even though I love a dual narration book.) But this was Sarah’s book. Just like Out on a Limb is Win’s book.
HBY is one of the few authors where I accept it being single POV. Congrats lol

This one is out at the end of January! You should def check this one out then!

For childhood sweethearts Sarah and Caleb, some issues during their 17 year relationship come to a head after Caleb comes to “rescue” Sarah one too many times and her questioning her purpose in life. A lot of the issues Sarah and Caleb deal with are relatable as I’ve been with my husband 17 years as well. An interesting take on a couple who have been together since they were 14 and lived a lot of life in their young years. Sarah lost her mom at 19 soon after marrying Caleb and had to rely on him completely over the years. Caleb is the ultimate golden retriever and devoted to Sarah but also gets lost in care-taking rather than supporting her.

When the opportunity to participate in a couples retreat to work on some of their more pressing personal issues comes up soon after a terrible fight that has left them both reeling and questioning the future, they jump at the chance to leave their day-to-day lives behind and focus on themselves.

This is a sweet story of a woman and couple finding themselves and their way back to each other. It feels like a therapy appointment at times but not in a bad way. The main couple was introduced in Bonam-Young’s “Out on a Limb” and it is nice to have their back story along with the current events.

While this story is not gripping or overly drama-filled, it is enjoyable for what it is, and fans of “Out on a Limb” will like it.

Thank you NetGalley, Hannah Bonam-Young, and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine/Dell Romance for an advanced digital copy of this book.

thank you netgalley & dell romance for this arc !!!

this book was sososoo emotional … the romance aspect was something i’ve never read before bc the main characters, sarah & caleb, are already married

it really was just reading about 2 married ppl who go through counseling & learn to love each other again & that might sound boring but it wasn’t at all .. it was actually one of the sweetest stories i’ve ever read.. obviously no relationship is perfect n this story really explored how even if ur in love, u have to constantly work at a relationship

the other part of this book was watching sarah rediscover herself / deal w grief / grow as a human .. & all those scenes had me SOBBING… it was actually so hard to get through at some points but it was also such beautiful writing & so emotional 🥺

AND the win & bo cameos … oh i was smiling ear to ear

the only thing i didn’t like in this was the sex scenes …. they just felt forced & out of place based on what was happening in the book & it kinda took me out of the story?? other than that, such a good book 🥹 4.5💫!!!!

This is Hannah Bonam-Young at her VERY best. You could tell she really put her heart and soul into this book as the emotions practically jumped off the page to grab you by the lapels and scream "ARE YOU CRYING YET?"
I will be recommending this book to every single romance reader once it comes out.

I can relate to this book on a very personal level. Great atmosphere, great plot, and fast paced. Reads like a romance, fiction, self help and self discovery book in my opinion. I also loved seeing cameos from Win and Bo from “out in a limb”. Great read!

Gorgeous follow-up to OUT ON A LIMB - more complex emotionally (as you would expect for a marriage in crisis romance) and even more satisfying as a result. It’s wild, funny, imaginative, and brutally honest about marriage, from the deepest joys to the realities of a shared bathroom. Classic Hannah Bonam-Young.

I fell head over heels for Out on a Limb—it was a 5-star read that swept me away completely. Naturally, I had high hopes for Out of the Woods, but sadly, it just didn’t deliver the same magic for me. The idea of rekindling love on a wilderness retreat sounded promising, but I found myself struggling to connect with Sarah and Caleb. Their relationship lacked the spark and authenticity that I craved, and their chemistry often felt forced, making it tough to root for their journey.

One thing that kept taking me out of the story was the constant use of the nickname "Sar" for Sarah. As someone named Sarah myself, I found it incredibly cringy—it just didn’t sit right and made it hard to stay immersed in the book.

I really appreciated the focus on personal growth and accountability, but the romance aspect felt underwhelming compared to Out on a Limb. Sarah’s frustrations felt repetitive, and Caleb’s efforts to bridge the gap between them didn’t quite land. The heartwarming moments I was hoping for just weren’t there, and overall, the story fell a bit flat. It was an okay read, but it didn’t capture the charm and emotional depth that Hannah Bonam-Young nailed in her previous work.

Hannah Bonam-Young has this special of writing characters that feel you real and go through such raw emotions that impresses me every time. Unlike most romance books ‚Out of the Woods‘ follow the two highschool sweethearts Sarah and Caleb who have been together for over a decade and are now trying to heal and grow in their marriage. In order to achieve that they decide that going on a no-phones-allowed hiking trip. What I really loved about this story is how grief and growing up is is spoken of and how deep questions like ‚What am I without my other half?‘ or ‚Am I trapped in a marriage pattern?‘ actually go. I really liked their story and how they learned to be vulnerable with each other. The only thing that was not to my liking was probably the pacing and the spice but other that that, great read!

Thank you NetGalley, Edelweiss and PRH for this ARC in exchange for a honest review 💗

4.5 🌟

this book is everything and more. i loved this and having married my high school sweetheart and knowing each other for 15 years, i could relate to sarah and caleb's story so much. this is a beautiful book intertwined with humor & honesty. i love and appreciate the realness of this story, i feel hannah really depicted a long term relationship/marriage in crisis so well. this book shows the ups and downs of finding your person before finding and knowing yourself. sarah & caleb are my babies! i loved reading their story and the past and present timelines really showed the reader their relationship and how deep the love and comfort goes. what sarah went through with her mom broke my heart and i just wanted to give her the biggest hug. it was also so much fun seeing win & bo and i enjoyed the side characters as well. this has become a new favorite and i highly recommend 🤍

thank you so much random house & netgalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review!

“You cannot throw your whole life away because one event didn’t go as planned. You cannot just call yourself a loser and will it into existence by giving up. You deserve far better than that. You are better than that.”

Hannah…. Hannah… there’s so many tears on my kindle… no thanks to you but thank you for writing such a beautiful story. 💙💙💙

This is has been one of my most anticipated reads for next year and I was so forever grateful to have received an e-ARC for this beautiful masterpiece. Hannah has the ability to write such tear jerking stories about people falling in love in such beautiful and unorthodox ways. Out of the woods is definitely a very different story telling as Caleb and Sarah were already married, but that didn’t make the story any less amazing.

This book truly made my heart weep. Most of the time we read romance books to escape the real world, but love is real and goes through trials and tribulations just like Sarah and Caleb’s. It was so refreshing to see a couple work through their miscommunications in such a way that they both began to understand both themselves and each other more.

I love the message within this that it’s okay to want a little bit of a change, but that doesn’t mean fully changing everything that you know and love. Change can be scary but it also brings challenges that further you in life. Caleb was so doubtful that change would bring good, but it was so refreshing to see him slowly open up and confess these feelings to Sarah.

I love their banter which is also so realistic. Talking about drag queen names, quoting movies and tv shows, knowing your partner so well because they’ve already spent so long together.

The little throwbacks to their early years was also so beautiful and emotional, seeing how far they had come as people and in their lives.

Truly this was such an amazing book, story and life lesson. Hannah continues to write such amazing books and I can’t wait to see what she does next with her beautiful brain 🤭💙

Romance books are where I go to really feel, and a marriage-in-trouble is a great way to feel a lot of feelings very quickly. I really loved the way this author captured the emotion and pain between Sarah and Caleb. it was easy to fall into their relationship and the first few chapters immediately had me aching with them.

I found the flashback chapters very redundant and would upset the rhythm of the story. I didn’t feel they served a purpose, especially when Sarah’s present day narrative was making callbacks to those exact moments with Caleb or her mom. The author does a great job of establishing the couple - especially since it’s not the first book in this series - and there wasn’t anything being added by jumping back and forth.

I think a lot of this has to do with the book being too short. Between the flashbacks and the random tangent in the last quarter, I assume the author just ran out of ideas and had to pad the book to be longer. There were several pages of the characters watching Judge Judy that genuinely felt like the biggest waste of time I’ve experienced in a book. This is disappointing to see since I really was invested in this broken marriage, and there wasn’t a ton of time actually dedicated to explaining how they’d fix it.

The romance between Sarah and Caleb is beautiful. Their conflict feels genuine and rooted in reality. This author thrives at writing loveable, relatable characters who draw out so much feeling in the reader, but I don’t think she thrives at writing plot. As with her other work I’ve read, I found I had a lot of fun while not a lot happened. I enjoyed that the conflict between Caleb and Sarah felt believable, but its resolution felt far too simple for someone contemplating divorce.

It leaves me with a “wait no… I thought there would be more” feeling that is ultimately unsatisfying. There was this build of up emotion that feels like it goes nowhere and instead just fizzles out. While that doesn’t lead to a bad book, it makes for an ultimately flat ending.

Other than the writing being good on a technical level, the story and characters were just okay to me.

In the first half of the book, including the dual timeline chapters, it is all about Sarah, feeling more like a self-discovery chick-lit than a romance. I had hoped that the flashbacks were going to show us more of Sarah and Caleb that we were not getting in the present timeline, but I was disappointed to find out it mainly concentrated on Sarah and her mother’s death.

It’s a disservice to call this a second-chance, marriage in crisis. Many times I found myself asking, “when is Caleb/the problem with their relationship going to surface?” I never once thought these two were at a near breaking point. The one solid thing about this book is their relationship.

The second half of the book was better, but overall the plot was a bit boring—which I suppose can’t be helped when it’s a couples therapy retreat in the middle of the woods. For me, a common theme in HBY books is struggling to feel any real connection to the characters. There’s also no big issue to resolve because the MMC is basically “perfect” so, it falls kind of flat (‘Out On a Limb’ being the exception.)

The climax that happens 85% into the book felt forced, like something bad had to happen and get resolved in the last 10-ish% to check a box. It felt unnecessary.

I did love the Bo, Win and Gus appearances.