I’ve followed Allison and Twitch on social media for years—the dancing, the family videos, the way they made joy look effortless. So when I saw this book, I picked it up hoping to learn more about them, especially about their life beyond what we saw online.

I enjoyed her ability to share with us her life, her stories, and her love for dance, her children, and Twitch. I was impacted by his death more than I thought and I know his loss is big for those who love and knew him. He was such a huge personality, and it is sad that he died by suicide. It’s emotional reading about their life together knowing how it ends. I can’t imagine that kind of loss… losing someone you love so deeply and being left with so many unanswered questions. I just kept thinking about her and the kids the entire time. I don’t know how she keeps going, but she does. And that alone makes this book powerful.

It’s not just a story of grief—it’s also one of love and resilience

So deeply felt and beautifully written. I loved reading more about Allison and admire her strength of character. Definitely recommending This Far to reader friends and appreciate Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read This Far in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishing team for allowing me a digital copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback.

Honestly, I'm not sure where to begin. This book starts off with giving us Allison's POV on how she grew up and the experiences that brought her to where she is. We learn that she was a dancer from a young age and a hard worker. She is a talented dancer and has many credits to her name, prior to Boss. She eventually gets together with Boss and they're together for 13 years. In those 13 years, there's a lot of love but there seems to be a lot of communication that doesn't happen, as they both have their routines. I did not count how many times there was a reference to things she didn't know, which was jolting to me that in a relationship of 13 years, there seemed to be too much that was not known and things ignored as they both lived their professional lives.

To me there was also a huge violation and disrespect toward Boss as she freely airs his dirty laundry but combs over hers as a "traumatic event".

As someone who has lost a bonus parent to suicide, eventually her kids will read this and I don't know that the reaction will be praise. I understand this was told from her POV, but it was apparent the first half was polished. The second half seems disorganized and from an unhealed, very angry space. I get it, I've been there. But I'm scared that in a few years she'll have regret for releasing this to the world.

Overall, this book was really hard to get through once you get to the second half. Not just because of the topic but because it's disorganized and all over the place.

Thank you to Harper Select and to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Prior to reading this book, I knew very little about Allison. I do appreciate her putting her story out there and talking about the effects of suicide on her family. She is so brave sharing this with us.

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my personal review. I found this book both sad as well as hopeful as Allison Holker navigates her way through the grief of her husbands suicide and the effect it had on both her and her children. She also covers how she got into dance which I found interesting. A good read overall.

As a fan of Stephen and Alison, I found Alison's memoir to be raw, honest, and courageous. "This Far" is a powerful story of grief, love, and resilience. Alison's honest writing is truly inspiring. She writes with heart, clarity, and strength. My heart goes out to her and her children.

Thank you to Harper Select and NetGalley for the eARC.

Allison Holker is such a courageous and brave person to write this book.  She deserves kindness and respect for sharing her story.  A story that might help people pick up the pieces after a tragedy.  Anyone affected by something similar to what Allison went through might find encouragement in her words.  Additionally, anyone who has been a fan of SYTYCD or of Allison's or her husband's will enjoy the description of their early love and building a family together.  Allison's story of being a young dancer was very interesting and I'm glad she shared it.  This book is beautifully written and very tender.  Allison is inspiring!  I highly recommend this book!

I was only somewhat familiar with Allison Holker and her late husband, so this story was new to me. I feel for her loss and can't imagine what it's like to grieve publicly. I appreciate her honesty and feel like she honored her husband even while sharing difficult details.

I was really interested in reading this book to following this person through her whole career. It was interesting to hear about all the background personal details the public didn’t know.

I loved both Allison and Twitch (Stephen) on SYTYCD, was happily surprised when they got together, and was completely shocked when Stephen took his own life. I read Allison's book hoping to get a more complete picture of all of those things, and she mostly delivered. Reading her words about losing Stephen and the aftermath was heartbreaking.

I do wish there was more in the book about her time on SYTYCD. I also wish that some parts were a little more edited in order to elevate her writing style. But I'm thankful that she was open to sharing these moments with us fans, both the happy and the hard.

This book could have been a magazine article or an interview with Oprah. I feel it’s just a book for Alison to tell us what happen with Stephen’s suicide. It shouldn’t have been a published book. I would have been really upset if I spent my money on this book. I think that she should have just been paid for an interview. I wasn’t impressed.

I loved following Allison Holker and Twitch on social media and was brokenhearted for their family at his passing. I was very interested to read this, however saddened when I learned his family was hurt and upset by the book. I found Holker's story very moving, and I can certainly understand the therapeutic value in writing and sharing your story. The book was well-written and her story was told well, but I tried to remember that there are 2 sides, or often more, to every story as I read this.

This Far is a raw and emotional memoir full of love, loss, and finding strength. It deals with many heavy topics including mental illness, grief, trauma, pain, and healing. I enjoyed learning more about Allison’s childhood and early dance career. The second half of the book turns heavy, but with an honest perspective on how to persevere in even the most difficult of times.

This is hard to rate because she spends a lot of time detailing her husband, Stephen’s, suicide, and her pain and anger is palpable. But it rubs me the wrong way that she is open about so many things no one knew about him—including her until after his death—yet she glosses over specific events in her life and explicitly says she doesn’t want to discuss them. I understand using this book as a way to tell her story and deal with her grief, but I don’t think she is healed enough to effectively tell it. It very much reads like a book about Stephen’s death more than her memoir. Thanks to NetGalley, Harper Select, and Allison Holker for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I’m not sure how I feel about this book. The author has a right to her feelings, but some things I feel are better left unsaid

This is a tough review. First, what I appreciated about this book was how she explains how much anger and pain there is for those left behind by someone who commits suicide.

My greatest upset though is she throws out a theory that maybe he killed himself because he was afraid he would sexually abuse his own son. She has no basis for this, just a potential reason. That is a horrific thing to put out into the world if you don't strongly believe it was true. How could you say this about someone you loved as just a guess?

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC for an honest review.

⭐️⭐️💫 Thank you to @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of This Far by Allison Holker.

This book is very much Alison thinking out loud. She has questions she won’t ever get answered so she’s asking them in this book. There’s nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.

This book brought more understanding to Twitch’s passing. She outlines all the issues she missed. They all seemed very obvious to me, but I can see how when you love someone you may be blinded. So I think in the end this may help people who see these changes in their loved ones.

His family came out frustrated about signing NDAs for his services, and I 100% support Alison’s decision. People were invited to the private wake that she didn’t know, that she said he barely even knew. You never know what they might do, and she had a good point about these photos not popping up online for her children to see one day (anyone remember how this happened with Whitney?!).

I was conflicted because I wanted to read her book early on. Then when I heard that she discussed very private things about Twitch, I was angry and didn’t want to read it. But Net Galley was kind enough to offer me an advanced copy so I decided to read it.

While Alison does talk about her life, it’s not very deep. It’s very matter-of-fact. The meat of the story is her capitalizing on her husband’s tragedy. While that angers me, I also see the point that this can really show people what they should look out for. I think maybe there would have been a way for her to do it without revealing his childhood trauma and the fact that he had a mountain of drugs hidden away. Those two things probably didn’t need to be revealed.

Do I recommend reading it? I truly don’t know.

I have been of fan of Stephen (Twitch) and Allison since So You Think You Can Dance. They were both such a light together in this crazy world. When I heard about his death it was so shocking I couldn’t even process it myself.

As someone who lost someone to suicide as well it’s so hard to accept that they went through things we didn’t know about. The questioning of whether we could have done something before, what were their final thoughts and the anger we feel for them leaving us like this.

Throughout the book, you can see all of her stages of grief writing it. Reading her story was very healing to me and I hope writing it has helped her as well.

Thank you for telling your story Allison.

I had been such a fan of Allison and Stephen's videos on IG - I didn't know either of them other than that, and I knew he was on Ellen. But just the rest of the world, I was SHOCKED by his death...even more so that it was a suicide. He just seemed to be happy. From that perspective, I can see why she wrote this book. To give people a glimpse of real life and that Stephen was a person who loved deeply, had great trauma and loss and while he smiled on the outside, he struggled at an uncontrollable level no one can understand. I think she did a beautiful job telling his and their stories. I know people came after her for writing this book and felt she was unfairly representing him but she gave a difficult glimpse of not only what he went through but the aftermath of their family when he was gone. Thank you, Harper Select, NetGalley and Allison Holker for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I never really understood all of the negative publicity Allison Holker had to take in the aftermath of writing this book. Me, like so many of us could not understand why her husband would commit suicide and what she did was try to answer this question for us and for herself. Anything more than that I truly don't believe. I find this book was something she had to do, and something that I hope helped her grieve and possibly understand something that is so hard to understand. I felt it honest and could hear the anger and pain she is still feeling. She didn't have to give anyone answers but I am glad that she was able to share her story.

Thank you to Harper Select for the ARC!