Book Review: Everything Happens For A Reason by Katie Allen

If you thought The Butterfly Room was heart-wrenching, then this next book requires a whole bunch of tissues.

Goodreads Blurb

Mum-to-be Rachel did everything right, but it all went wrong. Her son, Luke, was stillborn and she finds herself on maternity leave without a baby, trying to make sense of her loss.

When a misguided well-wisher tells her that “everything happens for a reason”, she becomes obsessed with finding that reason, driven by grief and convinced that she is somehow to blame. She remembers that on the day she discovered her pregnancy, she’d stopped a man from jumping in front of a train, and she’s now certain that saving his life cost her the life of her son.

Desperate to find him, she enlists an unlikely ally in Lola, an Underground worker, and Lola’s seven-year-old daughter, Josephine, and eventually tracks him down, with completely unexpected results…

Review

At first I really wasn’t sure if l would enjoy this book, mostly because of the writing style. The story is told through a series of emails sent from Rachel to Luke. I found the tone a bit abrupt and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to connect to Rachel, let alone the other characters.

The opposite occurred.

I got sucked so deep into Everything Happens For A Reason. I felt every bit of Rachel’s grief and her struggle to move on with her life. The author does a great job of helping the reader understand Rachel’s thought process and every decision we make. Of course, we don’t get inside the heads of the secondary characters but through Rachel, we do see some character development and begin to understand the other characters more as the story progresses.

Everything Happens For A Reason is heart wrenching but there are also some uplifting moments. The author does a great job of injecting humour into a sad story, doing so with respect and class.

This book really touched me and I hope you will give it a chance to touch you too. Everything Happens For A Reason is available to buy here.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.