I came upon this book a while back through an ebook Telegram group that I follow. I had read raving reviews of Colleen Hoover's book but never read any of her books before. So I went through all her books, had a bit of a hard time deciding the one to read and finally settled for "Regretting You".
I was captivated by this title in the sense that it's a novel on love but why "Regretting You"? The title got my attention and made me curious to read, to understand why such a title was adopted. I did enjoy every page and finished the novel within two days.
On goodreads.com, this novel is quite popular among young people with an average of 4.24 stars rating and 8,627 reviews. It's 363 pages long and first published on December 10, 2019.
"Regretting You" is a novel on love, family, loss and betrayal that touched the lives of a mother and her daughter. What's more, the betrayal was between two sisters which was not discovered until 17 years later! I must say the author is ingenious and a captivating storyteller. Her writing skill is superb and the dialogue is easy to understand.
The said two sisters while in high school dated two best friends. The older sister got pregnant in high school, dropped out of school, married her boyfriend and had a baby girl. Seventeen years later, her husband and her younger sister died in a car crash.
This began the unveiling of a big secret (betrayal) that almost tore this sister and her family apart. Even I did not see that coming! This violation of trust and love made me reflect deeply that anyone could betray another even when they do not realise it's happening.
Really, can one betray another without knowing it? You would want to read this book to know who betrayed who and how the story ended. But worry not, the story ended beautifully.
Another captivating part of the story is the mother-daughter relationship which was a bit rough at the early stage but improved when the daughter understood that all the mother had ever done was out of love for her. I'll quote the touching statement of the daughter from the novel thus,
Since the day I was born, every decision she’s ever made for herself was made in order to benefit me. I’ve always known that about her. But I’m not sure I appreciated it until tonight.
This is a novel I will definitely recommend for all and sundry to read as there lots of life lessons to be learned from it.
Thank you for taking the time to read through.