Daughtry and Lippincott - All This Time.

Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott – All This Time.

Rating – 8 out of 10.

Welcome to day three readers! I’m really excited to tell you all about today’s recommendation. This book is a new read of mine that I’d like to write about while it’s fresh in my memory. This book is All This Time by Daughtry and Lippincott. There is a lot of spoilers being mentioned throughout this post, so please do not read on if you don’t like them 😊, below is the blurb of the book, read this first if you’re looking for recommendations.

“Kyle and Kimberly are the perfect couple. At least that’s what Kyle’s always thought. But when Kimberly breaks up with him on the night of their graduation party. Kyle’s entire world is turned upside down – literally. Their car crashes, and when Kyle wakes up he has a brain injury. Kimberly is dead. No one in his life could possibly understand . . . Until Marley.

Marley is suffering from her own loss, a loss she thinks was her fault. As Kyle’s and Marley’s feelings for each other grow stronger, Kyle can’t shake the sense that he’s headed for another crashing moment, just as soon as he’s started to put his life back together.

And he’s right . . .”

Here are my thoughts on the book and it’s contents. Look out for the massive twist!

I came across this book after reading Five Feet Apart, from the same authors. I had such great expectations for this and they were met and exceeded. I loved it, even the shocker that is thrown at you around half way through.

We follow Kyle in the midst of a great loss, that of his girlfriend Kimberly and his journey of acceptance and growth. And watch him face the fact his future may not be what he always thought it would.

The first half of this book relates to many who have lost someone and didn’t end on good terms, or the ending wasn’t how they wished it would have gone. It is grief, it is struggling, it is seeing their face everywhere you go and hearing their voice all the time. It resonates with so many people and is such an important story to share.

At the start of the book Kyle is so in love with Kimberly. He is planning on going to college with her and has a plan to give her a bracelet as a token of his love. They had been together for years and essentially grown up together, they knew each other better than anyone. We reach the fact that they are only together as they are comfortable and cling to each other as a crutch to get through high school. They have grown into two different people who no longer belong together but feel too safe to leave.

Kyle is portrayed as a bit naïve throughout the book, and even a bit clueless as to the emotions of the people around him. All he is seemingly considering is his own feelings. First the feelings of Kimberly (pre-death of course). He doesn’t clock on to the fact she doesn’t want to go to UCLA. They had planned out to go together, but at some point she changed her mind and decided on her own path. This was something Kyle was unaware of. Would he not have been able to tell his girlfriend wasn’t as into the idea as him? Either she was the actress of the year or he was totally oblivious to her feelings and motivations. And then there was Sam and the way he loved Kimberly. Sam and Kyle are best friends. Would Kyle not have picked up on things such as the way Sam acted around Kimberly, or the way he looked at her? I can tell with a look what my best friend is feeling, which points to more of Kyle’s naivety and self-centredness. Kyle meets Marley at his lowest point and afterwards he begins to grow as a person. His grief lessons slightly and he is no longer the shell of a person he was. Marley brings out a good side of him and through their relationship we see Kyle be attentive and kind and the good boyfriend it was suggested he wasn’t to Kimberly. This symbolises the idea that sometimes relationships just aren’t right and it takes the right partner to bring the best out of a person. Kyle’s character growth was something I was so pleased with as a reader. Especially with the twists and turns of the novel we see how he copes with each challenge in increasingly mature ways.

Marley was also grieving in her own way throughout the story. For her sister. Losing a sibling is arguably harder than losing a friend for some. They are the first people you know, you bond with them in a way you never will with anyone else, and Marley lost hers. She was dealing with textbook survivors guilt whilst trying to navigate the life she felt she owed to her sister to live. When we are introduced to Marley she is in the graveyard, displaying the obvious grief she is still feeling. Kyle brings Marley out of her shell. He shows her it is possible to live again after a loss, and she finally allows herself to be happy. Or at least that is what we think, until page 202. The twist.

Up until now we were led to believe that Kimberly had died, and that Kyle was grieving, and found Marley and a slight bit of happiness. After this page we are informed that none of this actually happened after the car crash. In the car crash Kimberly survived and Kyle ended up in a coma for eight weeks and his relationship with Marley was a figment of his imagination whilst in the coma. This relationship that had allowed him to grow and change and had become a staple of his life for a ‘year’ whilst in the coma, none of it was real. He wakes to find that the girl he had lost and grieved was alive and him finding out about Sam’s feelings for Kimberly never happened either.

I personally didn’t see this twist coming. It got to the middle of the book and I was so happy with the growth of both Marley and Kyle. I was so proud of how they were doing and then to find out it was all a dream was insane, but it didn’t stop there. This was something I never saw coming and I loved it. It made me feel so disappointed for him. I was relieved that Kimberly was alive, I was scared for Kyle and the fact he was in a coma. I was curious who Marley was. This was an amazing turn and such great writing.

Kyle soon learns that Marley is the daughter of one of the nurses working in the hospital, and that she was telling him stories whilst he was in the coma. Everything that he dreamt had happened, was a part of Marley’s story. Them being together, them helping each other it was all Marley. And because of this Kyle felt he knew her, and every emotion he had felt while asleep was real to him. This got me. Marley didn’t speak to people. In this real world she was still grieving her sister. She was still damaged and broken and guilt ridden. So where Kyle had been changed through his love for Marley. Marley had not been changed the same way she had in the dream, for her it wasn’t as real.

In the last part of the book we watch as Kyle tries to rekindle what he thought he already had with Marley. Everything she told him about herself in the dream was true, now it was her turn to know him, and hopefully fall as he had. And he succeeds. He finally gets to talk to Marley and get her to open up about her telling the stories, and how he saw them. He told her how he felt which progressed to them deciding to get to know each other.

The ending of this book was perfect. I loved it cover to cover. I loved the whole dream, thinking it was real and reading the two characters fall in love. Then I loved the number of emotions I felt when I found out it wasn’t real, and then it warmed my heart with the ending, and how Kimberly and Kyle ended up being good friends despite their break up. How Sam was finally honest about his feelings in the real world. And how Kyle and Marley grew past their losses and saved each other in a sense.

This book and its wonderful authors earned the 8 out of 10 rating. And I would pay so much to read a sequel about how everything works out for these beautiful characters. They did it again with another gorgeously tragic story that ends so well. I really hope to hear anyone else’s feedback on this book and I hope you loved it as much as I did. If you got this far through and haven’t read the book please do. You won’t regret it.

Stay Curious!

J x