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Thanks for putting this book club together, @daeus-lamb ! It’s been so interesting to read everyone’s perspective on this book.

I totally agree with everybody that the buildup for the disastrous night was huge and the payoff was…not. And I specifically agree with @taylor-clogston that I felt very led to believe Daisy Grace was the one who would die! It was terrible that Jesse’s father died, of course, but he wasn’t a character we even met until 75% of the way through the book or something, and he was never given any redeeming qualities. I felt like a dangerous bear had been shot down, not like a character I was emotionally invested in had been destroyed. It did almost have the feel that Fabry intended to have Daisy Grace die, then shied away from it.

I did like how Fabry wrote Matt’s internal process while Jesse was getting married, and I was glad he didn’t make the ending too fairytale perfect, as most Christian stories do. But like others have said, I would’ve liked to see the redemptive aspect in motion much more. Yes, Earl gets redeemed, but we don’t really get to see that. He was very bad, and then he was pretty good. We don’t get to watch him change, wrestle through the early phases, fail and get up and try again. As @allertingthbs said, we don’t get to see much of Jesse’s change and growth either.

It’s hard to write a satisfying book where the big change at the end is nothing changes. Matt goes back to life as it was. Jesse and Earl continue as they would have if Matt had never returned to Dogwood. Yes, Matt has new perspective, but nothing external is affected by that. As another commenter said, nothing in the world is improved by the events of the story.

My biggest hangup with this whole book was Jesse’s promise. From the way Matt talked about it in the early chapters, I thought Jesse had honestly, independently promised to marry him. Which would still be ridiculous for a 25-year-old man to hang onto. But then her promise turns out to be a coercion from Matt in return for helping Jesse when her mother has just died? It was so off the wall it didn’t even make me feel angry because I just saw the characters as the author’s tools at that point. Fabry needed Jesse to promise to marry Matt, which she had no good reason to do–except a bribe that her sister’s safety depended on? What kind of grown man would hold her to that? “Jesse never breaks her promises,” but I wouldn’t count something a binding promise if it was made under those circumstances. And Matt never seemed to quite internalize how crazy he was to cling to that all along. If Jesse’s promise had been real, and if the story had actually made it important for Jesse to keep all her promises (yet another expectation I had for the story that was never fulfilled), I think a lot more would’ve come together. As it is, the ending kind of felt like “Everyone was right, Matt. This crazy rescue mission was impossible. And guess what? It was unnecessary, too.”

That feels kind of harsh for a book that I did find very interesting, unique, and thought-provoking. I would’ve been a lot easier on the book as a whole if not for reading other book clubbers’ comments. XD But I have to agree with y’all…there was potential for greatness here that didn’t get realized.