Review: Before I Let Go by Marieke Nijkamp
I have plenty of books. Many of them I have received as gifts and some were given to me by my coworker. Needless to say, I had this book for a long time before I decided to pick it up and give it a read. My primary mission this year is to read all my paperbacks, so I can finally give them away and/or donate them. Which is why, when I picked up “Before I Let Go” by Marieke Nijkamp, and looked at the enticing cover that gave off murder-mystery-in-a-small-cold-town vibes, I was sold!
As a former New Yorker who now lives in Florida, I was yearning for a book to remind me of the bitter cold that is the north.
Among being outsiders, Corey and Kyra are best friends living in a small Alaskan town called Lost Creek. They are inseparable, each practically a member of the other's family. Kyra struggles with her mental illness, making her a pariah in the town. Corey is her only constant, being there when she needs her, and helping her through her episodes.
So when Corey’s family has to move away, Kyra is devastated, but Corey makes her promise to stay strong and wait for her return. Months go by, and a few days before Corey is set to visit Lost Creek, Kyra dies. She is found under the ice in a lake that is supposed to be frozen solid that time of year. The people in town, including Kyra’s parents, are convinced that due to her battle with mental illness, Kyra went looking for a weak spot in the ice to take her own life, and her death was meant to be. However, Corey is skeptical and isn’t convinced with that narrative, she had known that Kyra had dreams and aspirations beyond Lost Creek. She is determined to get answers and suspects the reclusive people of Lost Creek.
I didn’t hate the book, that’s to say I didn’t particularly like it either. In my opinion, other than Corey, there was no character development. I don't even think Kyra’s character was established well. We learn later that while Kyra and Corey were trading letters back and forth, at one point Corey begins to dread writing back because it reminds her of life in Lost; she is later regretful of her actions. She begins overanalyzing all the events that happened in the past, either to find blame in others or absolution in her actions. Corey was a very well-developed character, one could sense the anger she had toward herself and the town.
There were so many parts of the book that were painfully repetitive. We learn that Kyra is ostracized for having a mental illness, and in many flashbacks, Kyra and Corey talk about it, but it doesn’t progress past that. Those conversations are repeated again and again and again in different forms. At a certain point, the story had me saying to myself, Okay! We get it! You hate being mentally ill! Then, the story begins to wrap itself around that isolated trait of hers, making her seem almost metahuman or messiah-like–something I utterly despised. I understand translating mental illness into magical realism, but this wasn’t even that. By the end of the book, I passionately disliked Kyra’s character, she seemed annoying and loved to self-victimize.
I did not get the creepy-town vibe that I was hoping for, instead, it read more like a mystery new-age book. It seemed unbelievable when the town treated Corey like an outsider, aside from leaving town, there was no other defining element that justified their actions. The book leaned on the creepy-small-town trope too much, and I don’t believe it was well developed. I understand what the author was trying to do when she connected Kyra to the town, with the bows and prophetic paintings, but there was always a missing element, maybe a connection as to why and how she was hated so much by the town when she was alive.
I enjoyed Nijkamp’s ability to describe a setting, and ultimately, I think it was the only element that had me coming back to finish the book. I am unsure if I would be willing to read another of Nijkamp’s books, but never say never–I like to give everything two tries. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t do it for me.
4/10 🌟
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