Rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Available On: Amazon

Let’s be clear up front: Before I Let Go is not the kind of book you pick up casually on a rainy afternoon. It’s the kind you read with tissues nearby, a glass of wine on standby, and full emotional consent to be wrecked. This was definitely a Bookstagram Made Me Buy It read; I’d seen so many good things talking about the depth and complexity of this book, I had to give it a go.

Kennedy Ryan doesn’t write love stories. She writes truth. Love, in all its devastating, complicated, breathtaking glory — the kind that doesn’t come with butterflies and fairytale endings, but with scars, therapy sessions, and years of grief no Hallmark card can hold.

Before I Let Go is a second-chance romance, but not the swoony, easy kind. It’s the story of Yasmen and Josiah — once married, now divorced, but still orbiting each other through shared children, a shared business, and a shared history that refuses to fade. The chemistry? Still there. The pain? Oh, it’s there too — heavy and unflinching.

This book is about the in-between. The space between heartbreak and healing. Between who you used to be and who you’re still trying to become. And Kennedy Ryan navigates that liminal space like a poet with a scalpel.

Mental health takes centre stage here — postpartum depression, therapy, suicide ideation, and the long, messy road of recovery. Ryan doesn’t gloss over the hard parts. She digs in. Deep. Yasmen is raw and real and so beautifully vulnerable. Josiah, in contrast, is steady and stoic — until he’s not. Their roles feel gender-swapped in the best way: she breaks down, he doesn’t know how to reach her, and their entire world collapses. And now we watch as they try to rebuild.

If you’re here for spice — yes, it’s got it. Not gratuitous, not excessive, but intimate and grounded in character. It’s a reminder that desire doesn’t disappear just because love gets hard.

Where it loses a star for me is in the pacing. The middle sags a little under the weight of so much emotional unpacking — important, yes, but occasionally repetitive. And while I felt everything, I sometimes wished for just a bit more tension or narrative drive to balance the introspection. That said, it’s a minor complaint in a book that otherwise sings.

This is not a story of people falling in love — it’s about people choosing to love, again and again, even after everything that made it feel impossible.

What Genre is Before I Let Go?

This one sits firmly in the Contemporary Romance camp but with far more depth than your average lighthearted fling. It leans into emotional fiction, second-chance romance, and real-life love after trauma, diving headfirst into topics like grief, depression, co-parenting, and the long, messy process of healing. If you’re after a glossy, carefree romance, this isn’t it — but if you’re ready for something raw, heartfelt, and beautifully honest, you’re in the right place.

What Romance Tropes Are In Before I Let Go?

Trope Count: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

This book doesn’t lean on tropes so much as it elevates them. Kennedy Ryan takes familiar romance frameworks and adds weight, nuance, and realism — stripping away fantasy and replacing it with raw, emotional honesty. These aren’t fluffy tropes played for drama; they’re grounded in real-life mess and meaning.

Second-Chance Romance

This is the beating heart of the novel. Yasmen and Josiah were once married — deeply, passionately, painfully — and now they’re divorced. But their love hasn’t gone anywhere. Instead, it lingers like a phantom limb, tender and aching. Their story isn’t about getting back what they had — it’s about rediscovering what they still are, and whether it’s worth the risk to try again.

Forced Proximity

They own and run a restaurant together. They co-parent two kids. Their lives are completely entwined — emotionally, logistically, and painfully. There’s no clean break here, no separation to provide clarity. Everything is tangled, messy, and still intimate. They’re in it, every day, and it makes every look, every moment, feel heavy with unspoken history.

Co-Parenting

Easily one of the most well-written portrayals of co-parenting I’ve come across. It’s not just background noise — it shapes everything. Their kids are part of the love story, part of the heartbreak, and part of the healing. It adds real depth and emotional tension to every decision they make.

Grumpy/Sunshine (But Make It Complex)

This isn’t your typical light vs dark trope. Josiah isn’t grumpy so much as emotionally guarded, and Yasmen isn’t sunshine — she’s a woman who used to be sunshine before loss and depression stole it from her. What we get instead is a more grown-up, nuanced take on this dynamic: two people learning how to reach each other through the fog of who they used to be.

Slow Burn

So. Much. Tension. There’s no instant reunion, no sudden change of heart. It’s tentative touches, meaningful conversations, setbacks, doubt, desire, and choice. Every step forward feels earned, and that makes the heat — when it finally hits — so much more powerful.

How Spicy is Before I Let Go?

Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️ (2/5)

This isn’t erotica, but Kennedy Ryan knows how to write a sensual scene that hits just right. There’s tension. There’s longing. And when things finally boil over, it’s satisfying, emotional, and rooted in so much more than just lust.

The scenes aren’t about titillation for titillation’s sake — they’re about reconnection, vulnerability, and remembering how to touch and be touched when your world’s fallen apart. It’s tender and hot all at once, which is honestly harder to pull off than the full-blown smut fest. Ryan nails it.

Expect open-door scenes, emotional intimacy, and heat that lingers long after the scene fades — but nothing too extreme or out there kink-wise. Think: real people having real, good sex.