ABANDONED: Chasing Before ➜ Lenore Appelhans.

Synopsis: Felicia and Neil have left Level 2 behind, but another level stands between them and Heaven: Level 3. While the purpose of Level 2 is to relive your time on Earth and make peace with your memories, the objective of Level 3 is to completely detach from life and prepare for your divine vocation.

During Felicia and Neil’s training period, a series of explosions destroy the portals out of Level 3. Tension is high, and casualties are mounting. Though Neil wants to become either a Muse or a Healer to help, Felicia is drawn to the Seraphim Guard. A rift forms between the pair, one that grows wider when Felicia receives memories from the Morati. The memories cast doubt on the people she loves the most, but Felicia can’t stop her curiosity. She has to know the truth about her life before she moves on–if she can manage to evade old enemies long enough to find a way out of Level 3.

DNF somewhere between 5-8%.

I didn’t even make it to my usual abandonment point of 50 pages / 10% in before I gave up on this one. There were too many clichés, too much overexplaining, too much unnatural exposition, too many obvious-to-you-and-yet-not-to-the-MC plot points, and way, way too many “oh you sweet summer child” moments that I just could not put up with. E.G. “I know my boyfriend and I are both dead and we only died at 18 and we’re still together in the afterlife (because of course you are) but we’ll stay together forever I’m sure of it!!”

*looks in the camera like I’m on the office*

It’s ALSO the kind of book that explains exactly what happened in the last book in the first several pages of the second one, which is nice if you spend several years between books like I do (but otherwise is extremely annoying and condescending), but, seriously. I’m not in the mood to waste a whole book giving the MC the time to realize that being single is not the end of the world.

Gurl. You’re dead. You have all of forever ahead of you, and your boy still won’t share a room with you “until you’re married.”

GURL.

AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT.

Goodbye, book. I don’t feel bad not reading you.

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