Alright, so this book was very different from all of Colleen Hoover’s other books. It gave me Verity vibes (even though Verity was much better in my opinion) because of the absolute psychological mess it puts you through. I tagged this book as adult because it has too much descriptive content in my opinion to be considered young adult. Also, this book has so many triggers, so before you start reading it, please please check for trigger warnings first!

The first half of this book was really good. I was into it even if I thought some of the main characters’ decisions were questionable. It was a good read even with the obscene amount of explicit scenes, but after the first half, it felt choppy and just weirdly formatted. This is also the number one thing I saw people complain about for this book was the second half. I talk more about it in the spoilers, but there’s an epilogue halfway though the book, and then an epilogue to the epilogue. If it just would’ve been told in chapters, I think it would’ve fixed that problem.

Okay, so, Asa as a character was very complicated. I sympathized for Asa’s childhood, but know that it doesn’t give him any reason to act the way he does in the book. He’s absolutely horrible… but at the same time, I can see why he is. He is still a bad person, but a lot of it can be attributed to his messed up childhood. 

Sloan, on the other hand, also had a messed up childhood even though it isn’t explored as much as Asa’s. She turned out the exact opposite, though, of him. I think part of that can be due to the fact that she had siblings and her focus was on them and making their childhood better instead of focusing on what made her childhood worse. 

Luke was… Luke. He wasn’t very dimensional in my opinion. He was the definition of “the good guy” and that’s all he really had going for him. I also found his quick relationship with Sloan to be a little unbelievable, but I like slow-burn romances better anyway. 

Spoilers ahead.

I promised I would talk about that ending and here we are at the spoilers! But, I wanna talk about some other things first. 

The thing that honestly disturbed me the most in this book was when Luke and Sloan literally do the deed in front of Asa after shooting him. I mean… dear Lord that was messed up on so many levels. First of all, how do you even get in the mood to do something like that in front of someone? I could never. Secondly, it was just… I mean, it felt so wrong. When you do that with another person, it should be for love and love only. Not for revenge. It was weird. 

Anyway. Onto the ending. It didn’t bother me as much as it bothered other readers because I was expecting that epilogue and then the epilogue to the epilogue. In my opinion, this was a poor choice on Colleen Hoover’s part. I get that she was a new writer and you still have so much to learn at that point in your career, but calling it an epilogue halfway through the book? And then having a prologue? And then an epilogue to the epilogue? If she just would’ve went with chapters instead, I think people wouldn’t have been bothered by it as much had she just gone to the next chapter instead of calling it an epilogue. 

Also, with the ending, my God did Sloan go through it. Three times? Three times she let Asa freaking assault her. I wanted to puke. It was so gross and I did not enjoy reading it at all. All I could think was when the heck would it be over?

Rant over. 

Overall, this is a decent book and was entertaining, so I didn’t really hate it as much as I’ve seen some other people hate it. There are many triggering parts, but it just reminded me of all the triggers in Verity, so I feel like I’ve seen this side of CoHo before. You might find that Too Late drags at points, but it wasn’t that hard for me to finish it. This is probably one of my longer reviews, but I just had a lot to say! Not the best Colleen Hoover book, but not the worst either. Just one more for me to read until I’m finished with all of her novels 🙂

Source: Audiobook from Audible