I didn’t want to fall in love. Love wasn’t included in the plan I had laid out for myself. My plan was simple; go to school, graduate and become the most well-known corporate law attorney on the west coast. I had it all right in the palm of my hand until the day I heard her voice, saw her smile, and fell in love with the most gorgeous set of emerald eyes.Love hits you like a Mac truck and you’re … and you’re done for. Out of nowhere, you meet the person you can’t see living your life without. Then an actual Mac truck hits you and rips your love away, taking your life right along with it. One moment she was there, the next I was left with my daughter and my newborn son. My daughter will only know her mother by the memories in her young mind and my son? He will never know her. He will never feel what’s it’s like to have the love of his mother because she was dead before he took his first breath.
My love for my wife was replaced by anger. Anger that this was my life, anger that my children will grow up without her, anger that I asked her to join me the first day I met her, when I should have just sent her away. If I had sent her away, if I had kept to my plan, then she’d still be alive. She would be able to watch her own children grow, but I didn’t and now she’s gone.
They say I’ll move on. They say there’s love after the pain. They say I’ll learn to love again, but I can’t. I can’t give my heart to someone else when my wife took it with her.
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**Warning: HUGE UGLY CRY BOOK** I want to clearly state that I love Colleen Hoover and her works. I am a CoHort. So know when I call Torrie “CoHo Mean” I am giving her a huge compliment. I don’t even know how to begin with this review because Love After Pain seriously grabbed me from the first sentence and did not let go until the very end. To be honest, I don’t think it has let go of me yet (and I’m writing this review a couple weeks after reading the book). That is how riveting the story is. I am going to warn you to have Kleenex nearby and if you don’t have a box please, go buy one before starting the book. Now on to the review lol.
Love After Pain begins with the beautiful scene of a wedding. You know where you pledge your undying love and commitment to the love of your life….but before the paragraph even ends you see the words I’m dead. And hence the tears begin. (DON’T say I didn’t warn you). Now you are in David’s world. He wakes up from an amazing dream turned nightmare to enter a real nightmare, facing the fact that his wife is truly gone. He is faced with raising his beautiful seven year old daughter, Clare and his infant son, Brody.
Love After Pain has you walk along David as he struggles to find his normal. As he tries to raise his children without the love of his life. You want to reach out and hold him, slap sense into him. Torrie Robles has brought so much sincerity, and compassion into her book that it just seeps out and clings to you. I, as a reader, rooted for David as he struggled to remain faithful to Kate’s memory while he was finding his way through grief and back into life. The characters in this story remind you of people you know. In bounds Olivia. She straight up wreaks havoc on David’s life. She doesn’t give into him and placate him. Olivia makes David face his grief head on. Everyone needs an Olivia in their lives. But Olivia knows, all to well, what David is going through. She lost her fiancée, Brandon. He was her first love, her life, her everything. Olivia is the perfect person to show David that life goes on.
I can’t tell you everything that happens in the book because where is the fun in that. All I can say is that I highly recommend Love After Pain. It’s a beautifully written romance that hits every emotion you have.
I’m not sure what I can say about this book, except–WOW. It grabbed me on the first page and wouldn’t let go. It was an emotional rollercoaster, and I’m not ashamed to admit I cried more than a few tears. The pain was intense, and I felt every bit of it, right along with both main characters.
Now my dilemma is which of her books to read next…