Swear On This Life by Renee Carlino Review
5 Smooches
Synopsis
When a bestselling debut novel from mysterious author J.Colby becomes the literary event of the year, Emiline reads it reluctantly. As an adjunct writing instructor at UC San Diego with her own stalled literary career and a bumpy long-term relationship, Emiline isn’t thrilled to celebrate the accomplishments of a young and gifted writer.
Yet from the very first page, Emiline is entranced by the story of Emerson and Jackson, two childhood best friends who fall in love and dream of a better life beyond the long dirt road that winds through their impoverished town in rural Ohio.
That’s because the novel is patterned on Emiline’s own dark and desperate childhood, which means that “J. Colby” must be Jase: the best friend and first love she hasn’t seen in over a decade. Far from being flattered that he wrote the novel from her perspective, Emiline is furious that he co-opted her painful past and took some dramatic creative liberties with the ending.
The only way she can put her mind at ease is to find and confront “J. Colby,” but is she prepared to learn the truth behind the fiction?
Review
‘Some of us will look back on our lives and recall events that were a bit too perfect, but until you know the whole story, it’s impossible to see the universe at work, or even admit that there is something bigger than us, making sure everything that should happen does happen.’
OK WOW! This book. I have so many thoughts that I know this will be rambly and I will start to think about some points that I loved. This is quite possibly the BEST BOOK I have read so far this year. Last year I read Before We Were Strangers by Renee and loved it so much that it made our TOP 30 READS of 2015 list. Swear On This Life blew that book, a book I loved from beginning to end, out of the water.
‘Then again, he had been my best friend. I had told him everything. And he’d used all of that to create an emotional landscape that was strangely true to everything I remembered.’
Emiline and Jase’s story is breathtakingly beautiful. It is hard and full of difficult decisions and lots of regret and loss. But it is also uplifting and hopeful. There are so many aspects I am not positive how to touch on all of them and not give away all the magic that happens when you go in blind. Emiline is a struggling writer unable to find her voice. Everyone around her tells her to write what she knows but what she knows is too hard to revisit. It is a childhood filled with so many dark and awful things and one ray of light, the boy she loved. But even he is too hard to revisit since she hasn’t heard from him in twelve years. She has tried to move on and for the last seven years has even been in a committed relationship. But the loss of her love with Jase still haunts her to this day. Before she has a chance to decide is she can and will write about her past she discovers someone already has. A new author and book is all the rave and everyone in the literary world is talking about All The Roads Between by J. Colby. But when Emiline starts reading the books she discovers it is HER STORY written from HER POINT OF VIEW. That can only mean the culprit/author can only be the one person who knows all the details of her story, her childhood best friend and first love Jase. Now she must confront him and find a way to move forward with her life, love and career.
‘We didn’t know it at the time, but we were lovesick. Our innocence was beautiful, impossible to capture again, impossible to re-create.’
Swear On This Life does one of my FAVORITE things that I find in books . . . It has a book within the book. As we live the life with Present Day Emiline we get to read the book that changes everything along with her and find out about her past through it. Renee handled this the way I wish all authors that have a book within a book did, We are not getting repeat information. Everything we read in the novelized version of her life is new and fresh information. It is made clear which parts of the novel are truth and which the author, J. Colby, used his artistic license. Emiline and Jase’s past and present relationship is so full of obstacles that getting to the HEA they deserve is one of the hardest struggles I have read. BUT the end justifies all the hardships you have to read. This contemporary romance touched on my personal favorite genre, new adult, we get to watch these two kids grow up and fall in love in the middle of a small poor town and with nothing but trouble and desperation surrounding them. My heart ached for what they had to endure and my heart soars when they overcame.
‘We weren’t together, but he was always there, like a part of my soul. I tried desperately to deny it and to forget, but no number of therapy sessions could take him out of me. We were a part of each other.’
Swear On This Life is beautifully written; Renee simply works magic with words and if I could have highlighted the entire story I would have. I know I have said this was a hard read and trust me several times tears fell from my eyes. But it was also sweet, and fun, and a beautiful love story. I really hope everyone has the chance to read this story which I believe is a game changer in the romance genre.
~miranda
