source: purchased
rating:★★★★✩
from goodreads:
When Leeds meets Layla, he’s convinced he’ll spend the rest of his life with her—until an unexpected attack leaves Layla fighting for her life. After weeks in the hospital, Layla recovers physically, but the emotional and mental scarring has altered the woman Leeds fell in love with. In order to put their relationship back on track, Leeds whisks Layla away to the bed-and-breakfast where they first met. Once they arrive, Layla’s behavior takes a bizarre turn. And that’s just one of many inexplicable occurrences.
Feeling distant from Layla, Leeds soon finds solace in Willow—another guest of the B&B with whom he forms a connection through their shared concerns. As his curiosity for Willow grows, his decision to help her find answers puts him in direct conflict with Layla’s well-being. Leeds soon realizes he has to make a choice because he can’t help both of them. But if he makes the wrong choice, it could be detrimental for all of them.
wow ms. colleen hoover has done it again. when i think her books can’t get any better they do. layla was such a great book. i have seen a lot of mixed reviews and a lot of people hated it but i just couldn’t. i finished in the span of maybe 2 half days (so technically a full day), maybe even less i don’t really know, it was a page turner and i got through it so fast!!
i love that this one was told from the male perspective, but still had the female perspective intertwined. i was super confused when it jumped from the interview to “real time” but it ended up making sense in the end. i felt like the intro was sort of rushed because i feel like there could have been so much more introduced and so much more of a story built upon but it ended up working out.
i loved leeds until i didn’t and then i loved (liked??) him again. i thought he was CRAZY. a ghost? or spirit? or whatever he thought it was. and basically giving up on layla after something so tragic which was his essentially his fault for something that basically was fake and did not “exist.” he rather have helped this fictional thing than his own girlfriend?? i loved layla and her free spirit until the accident and she became super annoying, i get it she suffered something super tragic, still annoying. but it all made sense as to why, and everything was back to normal in the end.
everything that happened in the house basically pissed me off and i wanted to stop reading but i was super anxious to figure out what was happening and i ended up loving it. i did not like the way they were basically torturing layla to satisfy their own selfish needs but i guess it was helping her in a way?? when leeds met the other “guy” that was just like willow, that threw me for a whirlwind but it was sooooo interesting and it kind of made sense as to why he knew so much when so little was given. i definitely wish there was more to the story and it had more building up to and after we found out what was really going on but all in all it was great. it definitely gave me verity vibes but i think verity was a little more bone chilling. nonetheless, i still love COHO and wish she would dabble more into this genre.
favorite quotes:
“I think existence is simply luck of the draw. We’re here for a while and then we’re not.”
“I wish my mother would get a hobby so she wouldn’t expect me to talk to her every day.”
“I wonder what happened in my childhood that make me take in so much guilt, even when I’d not responsible for whatever is wrong.”