All That Was.

☆☆☆☆☆

    All That Was.

   karen rivers.

Publisher  Farrar Straus Giroux.

Publication Date: January 16,2018.

Genre: YA Contemporary

Format|Pages: Hardcover|384.

 Source:  Goodreads|Library.

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Piper and Sloane were best friends. They grew up together, from childhood to first love, and in spite of how different they were, their friendship was supposed to last forever. That is, until Piper caught Sloane kissing her boyfriend—and just days later, Piper was found dead, washed ashore on a beach.



Sloane was torn with grief and guilt. How do you make amends for hurting someone you love, if that person is no longer around? And how can you ever move on and love again? 

 ☂

This book, my emotions… I’m not even sure if I will be able to fully explain them. They were all over the place while reading the book, and afterwards. I believe that ALL THAT WAS was one of most dramatic, intense novels that I read this year. I never read book by author before, and yet it pulled me right in. ALL THAT WAS is one of those novels, even though it intense at times, you can’t help but fall in love with it, and next thing you know, you spent hours reading it. That’s how I felt. Most days, few more pages turned into hours of reading and that’s why I read it so fast. The start is what pulls you in, since it starts from Piper’s point of view and as reader, you can’t and wonder, who did it, and was there a reason behind it? I know that Piper wasn’t always an easy person to get along with, but nobody deserves what happened to her. I can’t even begin to imagine what must gone through her mind, once she knew that she was going to die. Plus the way she died. I don’t even want to imagine. From start, I wondered, what lead to Piper’s murder.



Piper and Sloane’s friendship was intense. Sometimes I felt as two of them were more of frenemies then best friends. I felt as Piper pushed Sloane a bit too much at times. I wondered how Sloane put up with Piper sometimes. But then she was also there for Sloane when she needed her. Fact that she went after Soup, even though she knew how she felt about him, I didn’t like that. I know that Soup liked Piper, but I do believe that he went out with wrong person, he didn’t seem to have same connection with Piper then Sloane. I know that it was the reason that the two of them kissed. I know that Sloane blamed it on drinking. I do believe that they wouldn’t kissed if there was no attraction between the two of them. To me, it seemed as the two of them got along better than Soup and Piper did, up until she died. I know that the reason that Soup wanted to connect with Sloane, not long after Piper’s death. It had been her all along, not Piper. I know the reason she tried to avoid it, because she felt as she was betraying Piper all over again, even though she was gone. I would loved to have a friend like Sloane. I can’t even begin to imagine losing a best friend, the way that she lost Piper. It’s heartbreaking.



I loved the writing style, I loved Before and Now, so you got to know Piper and Sloane more, and get to see how their friendship was. Way that it was written, the way that she described Sloane’s feelings after her death. It felt almost Poetic. I knew that it wasn’t happening, while reading ALL THAT WAS I started to believe as it was. I felt the sadness, the grief and the guilt that Sloane felt after Piper’s death. I wanted to take Sloane into my arms and hold her. I am glad that she added Soup’s point of view there eventually, that was something that I wonder from beginning of the book, how was he feeling about all this? Considering all of it happened a day after Piper caught Sloane and Soup kissing. What he thought about the guy who killed her. I had a feeling that something wasn’t right with James, just the way he acted with Sloane. He seemed a bit violent, but I didn’t think he was that violent. I wonder if part of him, did it as revenge since he knew Piper was her best friend. Despite the subject, I couldn’t get enough of this book. You won’t stop turning the pages until the end.



Now that I read ALL THAT WAS , I can’t wait to check out other books by KAREN RIVERS . I already can tell that she is going be one of those writers that I will fall in love with. Her story felt so real. A story that I was still thinking about after I turned the last page. I want to see what other adventures she has in story. Be ready for a thrilling, emotional ride.