Book Review: Before I Let You Go

Book Summary:

Dr. Lexie Vidler gets a 2 a.m. call from her sister Annie. Annie, a longtime drug addict, always calls Lexie to bail her out of trouble.

Annie is pregnant and very sick. Lexie and her fiance go to the rundown trailer and take Annie to the hospital.

Once she’s been admitted, Annie is charged with endangering her unborn child because she failed the drug test.

She delivers a baby girl she names Daisy, who must go through withdrawal due to her mother’s addiction.

Annie is mandated by the judge to finish court-ordered rehab. Lexie has paid for rehab many times before and Annie always ends up leaving before she’s kicked it.

But this time Lexie hopes Annie’s baby will be the reason Annie finally makes it. Meanwhile, little Daisy remains in Lexie’s custody.

My Review:

I truly enjoyed this book, though the subject manner was emotional and loaded with our society’s serious addiction problem. This book highlights pregnant women giving birth to addicted babies.

The author helps the reader look past the selfishness of the mother to address the overall problem of addiction. Because we all know that pregnant women are expected to be perfect during pregnancy. And that isn’t always the case.

The problem goes much deeper. And the deeper psychological problem needs to be addressed as well.

About The Author:

Kelly Rimmer is an Australian author. With each of her four novels she tackles a different genre and topic.

Her first novel, “Suspending Reality”, was published in 2012. It explores the limits of people’s unhappiness, and the lengths that they will go to in order to change their life. The novel follows three women, all on the run from various problems in their life and it asks whether or not they will ever be able to outrun the ghosts and afflictions which seem to follow them.

Rimmer’s third novel “Me without You”, took on a new, different tone. It is a love story about heartbreak and learning to love again. It is a much more emotional novel than “Suspending Reality”, which is more conserved with philosophical questions.

Her fourth novel focuses on a woman who was adopted as a child. As she approaches the birth of her own child, she grapples with what it must have been like for her birth mother to give her up for adoption. She becomes obsessed with finding the woman who let her go.

Kelly Rimmer works in IT and writes in her spare time. She is a passionate reader and can usually be found devouring a a book or working on her next novel. Kelly lives with her husband and two children in rural Australia.