Before You Found Me - Brooke Beyfuss - ★★.¾

AUTHOR: Brooke Beyfuss

NARRATOR: Jeremy Carlisle Parker

GENRE: Drama, Women's Fiction.

RATING: 2.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: Decent enough, but I was expecting it to be more impactful. Some triggering content, but nothing on page except for the aftermath. Good for women’s fiction readers.

Story Synopsis:

After an argument with her abusive fiancé Ethan, twenty-two-year-old Rowan runs away. Having no family escape for her estranged sister Celia, Rowan takes shelter in an old friend’s empty house in a small New England town. Here she meets eleven-year-old Gabriel, the son of her new neighbour Lee. While Lee is friendly and welcoming, Gabriel is more of a mystery, appearing to Rowan only from the basement of his house, often withdrawn and bruised.

When Rowan discovers that Gabriel has been imprisoned in the basement by his own father for almost three years, she makes a daring plan: she will abduct Gabriel and flee to her childhood home in rural Oklahoma. Will their bond be enough to protect them?

The story comes to us in a limited third-person narration.

On paper, the book has plenty to recommend it. As the story of the bond between two abuse survivors and their journey towards safety, the book covers rock-solid themes such as coming-of-age, found family, blood relationships, domestic abuse (parental and partner), foster care, and morality in grey situations. Had the book focussed on these with a more literary approach, it would have been a sureshot winner for me. But it swayed more towards a commercial style and ended up diluting the overall impact.

The initial chunk of the book had me invested on every word. From the time Rowan escaped Ethan to how she landed up in her friend’s house, interacted with Lee and Gabriel, discovered the truth about Gabriel’s situation, and escaped with him, this entire section was written in an intense and impactful way, letting me see the trauma of both the victims first-hand without having any abuse directly on page. (That is to say, the beating scenes aren’t written directly, but the aftermath was depicted through severe injuries. Even this was traumatic and not for the sensitive of heart.)

Once Rowan and Gabriel settled into the Oklahoma home and two more characters – Rowan’s sister Celia and a local named Dell – were added to the regular cast, things went downhill for me.

🚩 The plot, which was anyway highly reliant on coincidences, became too exaggerated, with several issues glossed over. While drama was necessary in this storyline, the book seemed to use drama in all the wrong places. Plot points which were relatively minor were overdramatic, and the actual dramatic confrontation that ought to have been the highlight of the finale, turned out to be a damp squib.

🚩 Both Rowan and Gabriel had escaped intense physical abuse, but there were barely any remnants of the trauma they have left behind. Both of them almost instantaneously settled into their new routine, without ever visiting a therapist.

🚩 Celia was depicted as a typical dogmatic negative character whose only role is to be against Rowan, but the fact is that Celia was very helpful to the two victims, and many of her suggestions were pragmatic. She was unfairly utilised by both Rowan and the plot, and it didn’t seem fair to have her character depicted in grey shades.

🚩 I found it tough to connect to Rowan from the Oklahoma scenes onwards because she acted as if she was the only one who knew what was right for Gabriel. Her decisions were more impulsive than rational, and she seemed to view things only in terms of how they impacted her or Gabriel, and that too with a short-term focus.

🚩 Foreshadowing doesn't work well in this book. While I like foreshadowing as a writing device, in this book, it felt more shoved into the story.

🚩 There are several time jumps in between, with months and years passing by within a blink.

🚩 There are three romantic pairings in the book, and all of them seem abrupt. While the main “relationship” was atypical in its progression (by virtue of being somewhat one-sided) and I did like how it ultimately panned out, I still found it forced into the plotline. The other two pairings weren’t even needed, tbh.

~~~~~SPOILER AHEAD~~~~~

.

.

.

.

.

🚩 The biggest issue for me was the lacklustre resolution of the two potential dangers – Rowan’s ex Ethan and Gabriel’s dad Lee, both of whom had been left in the lurch by the escape. The confrontation sequences and the resolution of the two threats are unbelievably quick and smooth. The “resolution” with one character doesn’t even happen on page, being settled instead through a phone call with the lawyer. The other resolution at least takes place before us, but the character in concern capitulates with hardly any hesitation, leaving the whole scene feel anticlimactic. I expected far more from a book that began with such potential and threat.

.

.

.

.

.

~~~~~END OF SPOILER~~~~~

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 12 hrs 37 min, is narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker. Her narration was okay for me. I wasn’t a fan of her character voices, especially the voice she used for Gabriel that made him sound like a middle-aged man than an eleven-year-old.

All in all, this book works better as a women's fiction than as a suspense drama about abuse survivors living under a past threat. It needs a lot of suspension of disbelief, something that I always struggle with.

Still recommended, as long as you keep the above in mind and adjust your expectations accordingly.

My thanks to HighBridge Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “Before You Found Me”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.