Review of Saving Forever

NOTE: I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of Saving Forever and was tortured not being able to discuss this with anyone while we waited for the book to be released. Now that I can finally talk, I found myself a little loss for the right words.

NOTE 2: I hope I have made this review as SPOILER-FREE as possible. 

Saving Forever was different from the first two books in the series. Instead of the heart-clenching despair I felt in Forever & Always and After Forever, I started to feel a sense of hope early on in the book. At times I even felt myself smile. It was then that I knew I would get an ending befitting all the characters.

So much happened to Cade, Ever, & Eden in their young lives. It hands over the story at all times, in the choices they make -- the good and the bad ones. For much of their formative years, these characters were pretty much without their parents. The people who are supposed to love and guide them during the hard times in their lives.

They did not have that. What they got was hard time after hard time. Imagine that. Then imagine what you would do in their shoes. You can say you'd make a choice different from Eden's, but how do you really know? You do not. You cannot.

Often in this series, I tried to wrap my head around all these tragic events happening and tried to imagine myself there. What would I do? How would I react? I expected the tears and all the feelings, but that self-reflection, I did not.

I liked the hard choices Jasinda threw at these characters. She pushed them to the tipping point and, in Saving Forever, they dealt with the aftermath of that.

Eden grew into a character I loved. I've not had a life anywhere near Eden's and I seriously have no idea how I would handle what happened to her. Would I run away like she did? I just don't know but what I do know is that choice fit with Eden's character - her love for her sister, the guilt she had over what she did. The choice just made sense.

And her choice introduced us to Carter, the mute-by-choice carpenter/handyman/winery owner. I fell for him hard and fast. I love his family and am very curious to find out more about his band of equally gorgeous brothers. (wink, wink, Jasinda).

Eden's choice also brought us the beautiful scenery of my much beloved home state of Michigan and the lakeshore. I'd read and feel such homesickness. My eyes would flit over her words and I'd see myself back on the beaches of Michigan. I could smell it - you know that smell - that wonderful intoxicating mixture of the lake, the wet sand. I could even hear the sound of the soft waves repeatedly hitting the shores. Jasinda transported me there.

She did the same thing with immersing you into the characters and what they were feeling. The heaviness of Caden's guilt, his hopelessness. Ever's despair at what was (wasn't) going on between her and her husband. Her confusion - even though we as the reader knew what was going on. Eden's loneliness, her self-loathing at her actions with her twin sister's husband. And then we are there as Eden grows...along with hope that things just might get better, that she just might be able to have a future with Carter.

I seriously could go on talking about this book/series for a very long time. I have not read a book, let alone a series, that made me feel such a wide gamut of emotions, that made me ugly-cry to the extent I did, that surprised me, shocked me, as often as it did. It hooked me. It touched me. And a book/series that can do that to the extent that the Ever trilogy did is a very special series indeed.

If you haven't guess, I rate this 5 stars.

Saving Forever by Jasinda Wilder
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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