Scan barcode
A review by bookswithjax
Ever After Always by Chloe Liese
5.0
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again I love this series by Chloe Liese! Seriously it’s so amazing and I Stan this whole family.
That said this book hit differently than the others. It was harder to read emotionally and I’m not sure I was ready for so many enlightening moments on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Freya and Aiden have been married for almost ten years but they’re struggling. Aiden has anxiety and had a tough childhood that affects how he lives life now as an adult. Yeah that hits home, I also struggle with the same. Anxiety is such a hard thing to navigate, and if you don’t have it then it’s hard to understand and often misunderstood, or honestly most people think you’re just being ridiculous or dramatic. It’s not something you can control but only cope with. Chloe either suffers from anxiety herself or she put in the work to ensure she represented it as honestly and accurately as she could and she succeeds so well!! Not everyone’s journey is the same as Aiden’s but the heart of it is the same. I cried for him many times and honestly I was probably mostly crying for myself.
Freya is a natural born caretaker who needs words, affirmation, touch, and inclusion in order to feel love and secure in life. Ding ding ding... we have another winner because that’s me too!! Compound that with anxiety and, well let’s just say relationships and life are HARD!! I related so much to the issues Freya had in their marriage as I’ve experienced them in relationships too. When two people have different love languages relationships can be so hard and I loved to see how it plays out in this story. The therapy, the tools shown, they work out into discovering that what serves you may not serve your partner... gah this book was basically therapy in story form!!!
This book will definitely be triggering for some people, it was definitely triggering for me... but it wasn’t in a negative way but a therapeutic I’ve just been seen kind of way. It gave me hope that one day my very complicated self will find love too. And now I’m going to go have another good cry!!
TL;DR: Read all of Chloe’s books because no one I have read in contemporary romance writes real people and real love stories like her. It’s not all unlikely fairytale romance, it’s real life and it’s beautiful!!
That said this book hit differently than the others. It was harder to read emotionally and I’m not sure I was ready for so many enlightening moments on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Freya and Aiden have been married for almost ten years but they’re struggling. Aiden has anxiety and had a tough childhood that affects how he lives life now as an adult. Yeah that hits home, I also struggle with the same. Anxiety is such a hard thing to navigate, and if you don’t have it then it’s hard to understand and often misunderstood, or honestly most people think you’re just being ridiculous or dramatic. It’s not something you can control but only cope with. Chloe either suffers from anxiety herself or she put in the work to ensure she represented it as honestly and accurately as she could and she succeeds so well!! Not everyone’s journey is the same as Aiden’s but the heart of it is the same. I cried for him many times and honestly I was probably mostly crying for myself.
Freya is a natural born caretaker who needs words, affirmation, touch, and inclusion in order to feel love and secure in life. Ding ding ding... we have another winner because that’s me too!! Compound that with anxiety and, well let’s just say relationships and life are HARD!! I related so much to the issues Freya had in their marriage as I’ve experienced them in relationships too. When two people have different love languages relationships can be so hard and I loved to see how it plays out in this story. The therapy, the tools shown, they work out into discovering that what serves you may not serve your partner... gah this book was basically therapy in story form!!!
This book will definitely be triggering for some people, it was definitely triggering for me... but it wasn’t in a negative way but a therapeutic I’ve just been seen kind of way. It gave me hope that one day my very complicated self will find love too. And now I’m going to go have another good cry!!
TL;DR: Read all of Chloe’s books because no one I have read in contemporary romance writes real people and real love stories like her. It’s not all unlikely fairytale romance, it’s real life and it’s beautiful!!