BOOK REVIEW: All This Time

Kyle and Kimberly have been the perfect couple all through high school, but when Kimberly breaks up with him on the night of their graduation party, Kyle’s entire world upends—literally. Their car crashes and when he awakes, he has a brain injury. Kimberly is dead. And no one in his life could possibly understand.

Until Marley. Marley is suffering from her own loss, a loss she thinks was her fault. And when their paths cross, Kyle sees in her all the unspoken things he’s feeling.

As Kyle and Marley work to heal each other’s wounds, their feelings for each other grow stronger. But Kyle can’t shake the sense that he’s headed for another crashing moment that will blow up his life as soon as he’s started to put it back together.

And he’s right.

Spoiler Free:

When Kyle’s girlfriend all through high school tells him she doesn’t want to go to UCLA with him and she wants to know who she is without him in her life, his life is completely changed. Even more when they get in an accident giving him a brain injury, broken leg, and killing Kimberly.

Kyle’s future now doesn’t involve college or new friends, but grieving and healing. That is until he meets Marley. As they spend more time together, they bond on the grief they experience from the people they’ve lost. But as time passes more and more it seems that good things can’t stay forever and everything will come crashing down soon, its only important they stick together through it all.

The writing in this piece is easy and makes the book a quick read, but the plot and character development fell short on every page. I had a hard time connecting with the characters and what they were actually feeling. The plot seemed from the outside, one that is very streamline, but once I dove into the book seemed to take turns constantly and it was hard to follow the story knowing what I previously read and seeing were the book was headed. I had a lot of hopes for this book and was disappointed it floated on the surface -level instead of diving into the deep end on topics that are so important for our youth.

Spoilers Full:

Okay. Spoiler time.

I have a lot to say on this one directly relating to all and every spoiler.

So be prepared.

Cross at your own risk.

Trust me these are some wild ones.

Are you ready?

Let’s get into it.

WTF is exactly what I wrote on page 183 specifically referring to the quote, “I turn to him, and the light from the TV reflects off the glass bottle in my hand, hitting me square in the eyes and sending my head throbbing.”, because I mean that’s definitely a stretch there.

The light from the television, bouncing off the glass beer bottle and ricocheting into his eyes causing A HEADACHE. Come on, *ROLLING EYES EXCESSIVELY*. This quote defiantly represents the majority if this book, i.e. minus chapters one and two. Everything Lippincott and Daughtry wrote within these pages are a stretch, floating on the success that was Five Feet Apart. And I say success based on their sells and their movie deal in 2019 for I haven’t read the book myself. But nonetheless, All This Time was frustrating, easy, quick, and disappointing to read. As always let me start from the beginning before I go off into a random discombobulated review jumping from place to place.

The book starts in the action. On the cusps of their graduation, Kyle wants to gift Kimberly a charm bracelet that has charms representing important and memorable moments during their relationship. But when he finds out that his perfect idea of a future isn’t what Kimberly is planning also, he becomes upset and storms off, getting in his car during a thunderstorm. Kimberly hops in the passenger’s seat, not letting him leave alone and without an explanation. What unfolds is a horrible car accident and both Kyle and Kimberly being rushed to the hospital. When he wakes up in the hospital, he finds out Kimberly died. And from here on is when things take a deep dive into boredomville. 27 pages, that’s the only ones that was actually interesting and I wanted to continue to read. From here on time passed fast and in random increments, he doesn’t even go to Kimberly’s funeral, never has any conversations with her parents (though its instead stated how her parents are acting). There seems to be a dismissal of the grief and healing directly after coming home and to add to it, Kyle begins to have hallucinations about Kimberly multiple times a day/week.

For 30-40 pages that’s all there is. Kyle doing nothing and hallucinating Kimberly. He goes to the doctor for the hallucinations and his doctors only writes him a note that says “chill out. It’s not really happening.” Like um what? Or more so another moment of WTF?? The child, because he may be 18 but he’s a child, was in a horrible car accident, had a traumatic brain injury as a result, lost his girlfriend of many years, and is now coming to you saying he’s experiencing hallucinations and you tell him to “chill out”. Maybe his injuries are fully healed and are not causing these hallucinations, what about recommending him to a psychologist or at the very least a professional that can help him process the trauma he has experienced while also teaching him how to properly grieve and adapt through it. This was only another moment I knew that this book would disappoint.

After those 40 or so pages (now we're on page 69), Kyle meets Marley during his first trip to Kimberly’s grave. And their relationship progresses fast. The entire time I was reading I was convinced Marley was a ghost and a tombstone in the cemetery was hers. Her behaviors were always so weird. They went past normal social anxiety. And when she fled their dinner when his mother came home and he followed her back to the pond I was even more upset. Like of course she went away, she’s in your mind, and no one else would be able to physically see her. I did like the quality that she had to the environment around her. Like giving Kyle a different flower each time and explaining the meaning. And even her relationships with the ducks by the pond she loved, but because of all the other context clues within the story in only played more into me thinking she was a ghost.

When Marley and Kyle are kissing, she catches the child in the street and freaks out, running towards them and yelling at the siblings to be more careful, it felt displaced. Not her anger but the scene in general. Maybe forced is a better term for it. Because then she explains to Kyle how her sister died and how she takes responsibility for her death. And once they have this conversation, their relationship climbs aboard a spaceship and takes off. Kyle gets a job writing sports articles and Marley holds a writing/storyteller workshop in the park by the pond. Right after that she and Kyle go to the animal shelter adopting a yorkie. And Kyle says “She’s been talking about getting a dog since winter”, yet it’s the first time I as the reader am hearing about it. The adopting of the dog is the first of many question marks.

Time jumps another month, and it’s the one-year anniversary of the accident. There’s another storm, Kyle spots the same car he got in the accident in, he’s experiencing pain in his head and visions. Marley says something ominous about how she thinks they could never be happy. Kyle reassures her, they say I love you and then go to bed. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, she’s gone and he runs out the backdoor into the thunderstorm outside to find her. When he reaches the streetlight, his head starts to hurt and “then it all goes black.”

And then he wakes up from a coma! A COMA! **EXCESSIVE EYE ROLL PT.2**

Kimberly is alive. Its only eight weeks after the accident.

Kyle is absolutely convinced Marley is real, which I mean is a stretch. So, he researches her, but its hard to do when he doesn’t even know her last name. He uses her sister’s accident and death as a point of reference and finds multiple people in the country with similar names and stories. There is one only 7 miles away and he’s convinced its her. When he asks Sam to drive him to go and see, Sam refuses to saying he won’t traumatize an innocent girl. Like duhh? But he’s persistent and sneaks out the night and orders an uber to the house.

And let me stop there. Last year I was in the hospital for 6 days. I was having some procedures done as well as a surgery and it was nothing as severe as a brain injury and let me tell you there was no way I was escaping. So, for Kyle, a TBI (traumatic brain injury) patient to walk by multiple nurse stations and out of the hospital feels so unrealistic. Not to mention being in a coma for so long makes your body so weak, winding through the hospital halls alone is nearly impossible. So frustrating, but I digress. He walks up to the house, knocks on the door and asks the father if Marley is home. And then a young girl comes to the door! Like imagine an 18-year-old asking, late at night, if your underage child is home. Again, WTF.

So, its not her, time progresses he gives up until he starts smelling the jasmine and orange blossom Marley always smelt like and he’s convinced she’s been in his room. And the nurse assures him it’s the honeysuckle from the courtyard his room overlooks and when he looks out, he sees a girl that looks just like Marley. He rushes out of his room and tries to escape yet again, but is stopped by a nurse and while he’s trying to convince the nurse to let him through another older nurse walks by explaining cardiology have called her up for the night. When he gets a look at her he explains it as an older Marley. Automatically knowing she’s Marley’s mom.

That night he sneaks out *eye roll* up to the cardiology floor where he finds Marley, his Marley from his dreams, in the waiting room reading a book. Although this Marley isn’t the colorful and gleeful Marley he knows, this one is brooding and basically Bella Swan 2.0. And here’s the best part, she walks away, leaving her notebook and he picks it up fanning through the pages and reads it. Which is so invasive, but in the pages is the story of what he had dreamt in his dreams. Yup, SHE WAS READING THE STORY TO HIM WHILE HE WAS IN A COMA. Like these two kids never met prior, she only was there because her mother worked there and she decide to choose this vulnerable boy and impeded in his room and read a story she created about them falling love. How weird is that? He feels like he knows her more than she actually does. Like she only knows what she’s made up about him. Its so toxic and weird I couldn’t even take it seriously.

He tries over the course of a week to try to get her to talk to him. And he finally does by giving her a pearl which refers to a story she had told him earlier in the book. And she breaks down about how she doesn’t deserve to be happy after what has happened to her sister. And the resolution is quick. Basically, he tells her everything will be okay and therefore it is. Its quick and surface level.

Now the book is almost done, you as the reader is waiting for resolution and tying up loose ends. You get over the fact that this relationship is a fake one, crafted and manipulated by the girl, how he never had time to really get to know her. And then Kyle goes and buys her the same dog Georgia that she adopted in his dream. Like the same dog. And Kimberly brings it in the hospital, like they’d let a random dog in the hospital where sick people have weak immune systems. But also, adopting a dog is a huge responsibility, and surprising people with dogs is the worst thing you can do. They’re a huge commitment and the family needs to know they can afford the food, care, and vet bills that are associated with an animal. Again... I digress.

Marley and her mother take the dog, Georgia, to the same park and Kyle calls on facetime, while they are there. The dog then runs into the street and Marley panics and runs after it. She grabs Georgia telling Kyle they are fine. But then a child runs into the road in front of a car and Marley pushes the child out of the way and gets hit with the car instead. Marley is rushed to the hospital and by the time Kyle gets there, MARLEY IS IN A COMA. *eye roll**eye roll**eye roll**eye roll*

When he gets there, he grabs her hand is transported back to their dream place. She tells him that she has to go be with her sister. “I will love you forever. Our story will live on forever.” She walks off in to the distance with her dead sister. Kyle opens his eyes and tells her mother she’s not coming back and then the heartbeat monitor flatlines. Her mother yells at the doctor to do something and then… MARLEY COMES BACK TO LIFE. And you know what this girl says, “I had to say goodbye to my life with Laura…before I could start my life with you.” COME ON. WTF. And then the book ends. The End close the pages tight and throw it away because wtf.

This books bounced around any real issues and topics to dive deeper and thicken the connection between reader and characters. It pulls out every drama card it could. Coma-twice. Death of a loved one-twice. A car accident. Someone dying and coming back to life. It almost felt as though topics were thrown against the wall to see what stuck. It didn’t add to the story or the relationship between characters. It only made me more annoyed.

I gave this piece a 2.1 because I don’t really like to go below a 2 in reviews unless I can’t even comprehend or finish a book. So, this book mainly got its rating for having a plot, a crazy and mismatched one at that, while also having easy writing that helped me progress through it quickly.

Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott

Rachael Lippincott:

Coauthor of All This Time, Five Feet Apart, and She Gets the Girl, author of The Lucky List; Lippincott holds a BA in English Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her wife and dog.

Mikki Daughtry:

Daughtry is an American screenwriter and young adult fiction author from Georgia best known for her writing on films The Curse of La Llorona, Five Feet Apart and Nightbooks. Daughtry graduated and studied theatre arts at Brenau University.

GoodReads Review

Grade Level 7-9 (12 years and up)

ISBN-13: 978-1534466340