Reviewer: Casee You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: January 7, 2020
Format: eARC
Source: NetGalley
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 320
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Reading Challenges: Casee's 2020 Goodreads Challenge
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Acclaimed author Colleen Oakley delivers a heart-wrenching and unforgettable love story about a woman who must choose between the man she loves and the man fate has chosen for her in a novel that reminds us that the best life is one led by the heart.
Mia Graydon's life looks picket-fence perfect; she has the house, her loving husband, and dreams of starting a family. But she has other dreams too — unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of them, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own—he's been dreaming of her too.
Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers. But when diving into their pasts begins to unravel her life in the present, Mia emerges with a single question—what if?
Wow. This book. This book was not for me. At all. It is marketed as a romance, but it was far from romantic. I was really annoyed by the time I finished this book.
Mia Graydon is happy with her life, or so it seems. She has an amazing husband, she just moved to a quaint new town, and she gets to paint whenever she wants. There is nothing Mia wants more than to have a baby. It’s devastating to her that she keeps miscarrying. It’s something that she doesn’t understand and she blames herself for. It eventually affects her living her best life and her relationship with her husband.
Mia loves her husband, Harrison, dearly, but she has a secret. Since she was in college, she’s been dreaming of a man. She doesn’t know why and doesn’t think it’s relevant enough to tell her husband. Especially considering that some of the dreams are rated R. Mia has written it off as being a little crazy and gives it no further thought. Until she runs into a man that looks exactly like the man in her dreams. When she learns that he has been dreaming about her, Mia knows she has to find out what’s happening.
Oliver hasn’t been dreaming about Mia long, but she dies in every dream he has. Together then visit experts on dreams and try to figure out what is happening to them. Mia is so involved in figuring things out that she doesn’t notice her marriage to Harrison imploding. Harrison has been beyond amazing about Mia and Oliver, but he has problems of his own. Problems that affect him deeply.
I didn’t like Mia. She was self-absorbed. The author tried to write it off as a woman that was caught up in what she lost (her babies) and trying to find her way. The fact was that she has always been selfish. She’s always let Harrison take care of her and never returned the favor. The status quo worked for awhile until Mia finally (finally!) realized what a selfish bitch she was being.
I hated, hated the ending. There was no HEA and I don’t think she plans on another book. If she does, I won’t be reading it.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.