This book was an excellent read but a tough one and very emotional. Gabby and Dylan were best friends as kids and fell deeply in love. They were each other’s first – and only – everything. They were perfect together and knew this was their forever, until he cheats and destroys everything. Slater was a dear friend who had loved Gabby since childhood but she only had eyes for Dylan. Slater was there for her when Dylan upends her life and despite wanting time to recover from the breakup, she finds herself madly in love with Slater and struggling to understand how she had ignored these impulses for years.
Gabby and Slater are perfect together but fate intervenes to ensure she can’t simply cut Dylan out of her life. She’ll never trust him again, but wants to support her best friend during a dark time in his life and Slater supports her every step of the way. It’s almost impossible to give any details without being a spoiler so I’ll only say Gabby experiences two life-changing events simultaneously and she may never recover. Slater is still there, content to be whatever she needs but she pushes him away.
This story destroyed me. There’s so much heartbreak and while I felt bad for Dylan and Gabby, my heart went out to Slater the most. He experienced tragedy after tragedy and the guy is only in college. This wasn’t an easy book to read but I was so invested in the story, I had to know what happened next, despite it being a real tearjerker (which is usually a no for me). Even with the heartache, I enjoyed it until nearly the end but the last ten percent or so just broke me. Up until then, it was rough but made sense. Then Gabby handled everything wrong and Slater’s reaction was out of character so I just didn’t like where it went late in the story.
That’s personal preference, not a criticism of the quality of the story. It’s a complex story with a lot of things happening and complicated characters but Siobhan Davis does those things flawlessly, I just wanted a different ending. There is ultimately a HEA and the epilogue soothed me but I wish that last bit of the story had been different. There’s so much more I’d like to say but I’ve struggled to put it to paper because everything else I’ve written is a spoiler so I’ve cut a lot from this review.
This is a beautiful, haunting story that’s very well crafted but it’s painful due to the depth of the characters and the way this book pulls you in. I’m not sorry I read it but be prepared before reading this one, it’s a doozy.
When Forever Changes on Amazon
When Forever Changes
by Siobhan Davis
Forever Love duet book 1
Published 2018
Gabby
Looking back, I should have seen the signs. Perhaps I did, but I subconsciously chose to ignore them.
From the time I was ten, when I first met Dylan, I knew he was my forever guy. Back then, I couldn’t put words to what I was feeling, but, as the years progressed, I came to recognize it for what it was—soul-deep love. The kind only very few people ever get to experience.
Dylan was more than just my best friend, my childhood sweetheart, my lover. He was my soul mate. We were carved from the same whole—destined to be together forever.
Until he changed.
And I believed I was no longer good enough.
Until he shattered me so completely, it felt like I ceased to exist.
And I’d never experienced such heart-crushing pain.
Until he leveled me a second time, and I truly wanted to die.
But I had to stay strong because I wasn’t alone in this cruel twist of fate.
I look to the sky, pleading with the stars, begging someone to tell me what I should do because I don’t know how to deal with this. I don’t know how to cope when my forever has changed, and I can’t help wondering if I had seen the signs earlier, if I’d pushed him, would it have been enough to save us?
Or had fate already decided to alter our forever?
