**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.