If I Let You Go: The Heartbreaking, Shocking Richard and Judy Book Club Pick

Product Information

If I Let You Go is an unsettling, character-driven novel that introduces us to Janet, a young woman who, after a tragic accident eleven years ago, has spent her life in the shadows, performing her cleaning job to the best of her abilities, keeping house and placating her domineering husband, and visiting her elderly father as often as possible, until one night she decides she’s had enough and by morning her life will be irrevocably changed forever when she wakes to discover she’s a heroine of a train crash she can’t actually remember. But things are not quite what they seem, and she finds herself having to develop a courage and resolution that seemed lost for ever, to break out of the chains of her own making.

I actually at times was very panic stricken for her , I was on the edge of my seat racing to finish this . I thought it was a very powerful and thought provoking read , it’s definitely one I would recommend and It will sit with me for a long time I think . After a night out drinking with her friends she wakes up the next day in hospital having survived a horrific train crash and saved the life of a little girl but with no memory of the event.Though she does a thing that I find awful to consider, Janet is painted in such a way that it’s hard not to hope things work out for her. As all this unfolds, we find out what happened the night Claire died, that Janet was leaving Colin because of his abusive controlling behaviour. Janet is a decent human being with so much to offer to anyone blessed with more humanity and self-awareness than her self-obsessed husband is able or willing to show her and her gradual discovery of the right path forward is slow but so believable. Having also read and loved this author's debut novel, If I Can't Have You, it is clear that she has an enormous talent for writing unforgettable, complex characters who, despite behaving in sometimes shocking and indefensible ways, burrow their way under your skin. But Janet's story isn't quite what it seems, and as events spiral out of control, she soon discovers that coming clean isn't an option.

I grow increasingly disenfranchised with thrillers; so many seem geared toward parents and totally miss the mark for me. She can remember little of the evening, but footage emerges of her helping to rescue the daughter of a local celebrity.She lives with her husband Colin who blames her solely for their daughters death and is incredibly emotionally abusive and controlling (big trigger warning for this topic! Janet believes she has been redeemed for Claires death, but as she becomes well known for her heroic act, she starts to remember what really happened that night. She can't remember if she saved the child or not but the CCTV certainly suggests that, and it leads to all sorts of events for Janet.

We peek behind the outward face of Janet to see how she navigates life as the day that would have been her daughter's eighteenth birthday. She becomes embroiled in a series of events where she makes some questionable choices, led by both her grief, a bout of memory loss and influences both good and bad, she is left with a huge choice to make. Thank you to NetGalley, and to the publisher, for providing me with a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.I love Charlotte Levins writing as she draws you in to the story and she's definitely made a fan out of me. I really enjoyed this novel, the second I've read from Charlotte Levin, who seems to have a real knack for writing flawed protagonists so that we are both horrified by their actions and rooting for them to come good. I rooted for Janet from the first page, and in all her sadness and shyness, wanted the best for her. When a train crash happens and Janet is seen as the local hero for saving a little girl, her life begins to change. This is an intelligent forensic examination of an abusive relationship and has at its centre a woman who is tormented by her share of responsibility for the death of her young daughter.

I loved that she was morally complex, reminding us that even the nicest people with the best of intentions can make terrible choices. I constantly felt sorry for the character of Janet, trapped in a downtrodden life, bearing guilt for something that was not her fault. I'm in awe of Charlotte Levin's writing - such beautiful prose - and a story that grabs you and doesn't let you go all the way through.

She is very real and I liked how the author lets the reader into her innermost thoughts and feelings, allowing her to confide her darkest secrets so that we understand her rather than judge. I found this easy to get into, I didn't warm to any character really, but I did like how they were portrayed. This is my first book by Charlotte and I really enjoyed how each chapter was a layer of Janet and once we keep unpeeling we see more sides and her story. For a while events really transform her in a chrysalis to a butterfly way but then things change and become a bit mysterious.