A big thank you to Viking/Penguin for providing me with an electronic copy of this book.

Fiction
Released July, 2011
416 Pages
Bottom Line: Skip it.

Plot Summary of The Last Letter from Your Lover:

After losing much of her memory in a car accident, young wife Jennifer Stirling finds a love letter from “B”, someone other than her husband, and must figure out who he is and what they had.

My Thoughts on The Last Letter from Your Lover:

I loved Me Before You (JoJo Moyes’ 2012 novel) and was excited to read some of her other work. Maybe it was because Me Before You set such high expectations, but The Last Letter from Your Lover came up a bit short for me.

That being said, this is an odd book for me to review because I was somewhat bored until well over halfway through, but did become engrossed from that point on. So, how to rate it overall? I ended up recommending to “skip it” because I think most regular readers (i.e. those that don’t have to write a review!) would put down a book they were bored with well before the halfway point. I think a good book has to “hook” the reader sooner than that.

This is one of those love stories that connects a couple from the past (Jennifer Stirling and “B” in 1960) with a different present day couple (Ellie Haworth and John in 2003). I’ve read books like this before and the stories are usually told through alternating chapters. So, that was my expectation with this book. I was surprised to find that Ellie and John don’t show up until over halfway through the story. This annoyed me because I was awaiting their appearance (in a confused, rather than an exciting, suspenseful way!) and even went back to Amazon to make sure I’d read the plot summary correctly. 

Jennifer and “B” are the real story here and Ellie and John are merely vehicles to tell Jennifer and “B”‘s story, which is why I didn’t bother even mentioning Ellie and John in my own plot summary. Ellie stumbles upon Jennifer and “B”‘s story while working for “The Nation” and starts playing detective. What she learns then causes her to think hard about her own romantic situation with John and to attempt to track down Jennifer and “B”. I feel like I would have been much happier had this expectation been set appropriately for me! 

One of the things that I loved most about Me Before You was the snarky, witty dialogue between Will and Louisa and that was missing from The Last Letter from Your Lover. I think snappy conversation between Jennifer and “B” would have made me much more interested in their fate and kept me generally engaged earlier in the book.

Despite enjoying The Last Letter from Your Lover by the end, it took me too long to get into it.

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