I was intrigued as to where the premise of this book would go and I enjoyed the journey. Chloe and jack were together 5 months when he was suddenly killed. Chloe is then thrown into a situation where none of Jacks friends or family knew she existed and she begins to question whether her grief is valid when the person she knew is nothing like everyone else knew. She then starts to follow a ‘list’ of events that her and Jack had talked about doing in their future together, hoping to get closure for herself and feel closer to Jack. However things don’t go this way and lead to Chloe further questioning the Jack she knew and loved.

This was really interesting and kept me engaged wanting to know more. However I didn’t like most of the characters. I feel like we didn’t get to properly know Jack, other than through Chloe’s visions and memories and through his friends and family members stories (which are completely different to what Chloe remembers) but I did find this intriguing to see the differences. However, side characters infuriated me. Jack and Chloe’s parents & friends are all awful and I didn’t like anyone apart from Kit and Gareth. I do think Chloe was also insufferable at times and just as awful towards others at times.

I’m also confused as to why Justin was introduced and why it was needed? I personally could of done without him being a part of the story as I felt like it created a whole new story line that barely got touched on again. She ignores messages from him for most of the book and then in the epilogue it’s all about him again.

Overall I enjoyed this but it isn’t a new favourite or something that I think will be particularly memorable (but that’s ok).

This reminds me so much of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird, which means this is an extremely emotional book. It's thought-provoking, which is great, but it is really sad. I don't think I needed that right now, but this is definitely the type of story I'd like to return to one day.

“So, word of warning for anybody who- like me- has fallen into the habit of taking photos of a rainbow salad; two glasses of wine by candlelight: feet on a beach: don’t. Take photos of people. You will never, ever, ever care about your toes painted neon pink on the sand, ever. But you’ll wish you had more photos of the person you loved."

When it comes to loss, how do you cope? I'm a sobbing freakin mess. I don't do well with hurt or loss or "forever gone". How do you move on when the person who's gone was just right in front of you hours before?

Chloe and Jack were adorably in love; it brought me back to the first 5 months of my previous relationship, probably the only one that if this had happened to me I would be a WREK. Cause even at 5 months I was sure he was my forever (we were high school sweethearts ended up getting married but divorcing at 30, I still feel like I lost my best friend most days).

The news being broken to her was devastating, considering his parents didn't know who she was or why she was in his home. I can't imagine how much harder that must had been as well.

I tend to stay away from reads like this lately, but in light of Valentine's Day... that was probably still a pretty bad idea.

Despite how sad this topic is, this book is also about hope, moving on and finding your way while dealing with grief and loss. It was definitely an eye opening and thought provoking experience. And I'm glad I picked this one up!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this title!

Enjoyed this love story, very thought provoking & well written. Not quite the ending I had anticipated & did find the last two chapters a little long winded, that said, still a good read

Okay, I’m sorry but this book was just not it for me. Lowkey this is the first book that I’ve ever rated a 1/5 and it’s seriously stressing me out, but I just really didn’t like it. Maybe I’ve just been surrounded by death so much lately that I don’t wanna hear about it anymore. Maybe it’s the fact that my boyfriends name is also Jack. Maybe it’s just because I couldn’t stand the main character or like 95% of the other characters. Whatever the reason, I just did not like this book & could not wait to finish it.

"I reckon I love you, Chloe Roscoe."

The title of this book is utterly heartbreaking. The little "reckon" in Jack's oft-spoken greeting to Chloe is one her acquaintances hone in on through the book, where her relationship with Jack and her grief for his passing is dismissed because they only knew each other for a short time. It was an aspect of the book I truly despised, espeically when it came from her family.

This story of lost love, lost opportunities, and trying to find your new life is heartbreaking and emotional. I loved reading of Chloe's return to Thailand, it felt like a new start for her and a new section of her life.

Quite a few of the characters (Chloe, Simon) really endeared to me, whereas others (Chloe's mother, Justin) weren't such pleasant reading.

I enjoyed this one! It’s a concept I haven’t seen a lot in that when Chloe’s boyfriend is killed, they’ve only been together for five months. His parents and friends haven’t even heard about her, let alone met her. At first she is pretty much dismissed by Jack’s parents and friends, especially at his funeral. They don’t believe that Chloe and Jack were serious, at first they question if they were even together at all. My heart was breaking for Chloe through the whole book, especially when even her own mother and best friend were quite cruel, basically telling her to get over it and saying it was a good thing that they’d only been together five minutes, as if she shouldn’t need to grieve him? This didn’t sit well with me, I find it hard to believe that your own mother would respond like that. But I really liked the character of Chloe and seeing her grow over the course of the book, doing the things she and Jack had always discussed, even travelling back to Bangkok where her and Jack had visited, and enduring a ski lesson. The whole time Chloe was waiting for some sort of revelation to help her move on, but of course, this doesn’t come.

All in all, this was a nice read. Thank you to the author and netgalley for letting me read it.

So I am a little bit of a sucker for a good love story. Whether they’re light-hearted or rooted in tragedy, as long as it has an easy-to-root-for romance at its centre, I’m usually bound to fall for it. That’s exactly what I was expecting from Love, Almost.

Chloe had only been with Jack for five months when the unthinkable happened -Jack was hit by a van and died instantly. Now, Chloe feels she must live out the life they’d planned together on her own. But in doing this, she is forced to answer a pivotal question -was what they had really love or did they only almost get there?

One thing that Chloe struggles with is the fact that her relationship with Jack was so brief and she isn’t sure whether she deserves to mourn him like his friends and family are. It seems that she is constantly trying to prove to Jack’s inner circle -who never got the chance to meet her- and also to herself that their romance happened and that their love was real. I guess it puts paid to the school of thought that anyone who comes into your life has the power to change it forever, no matter how little time they spent in it.

Chloe takes a trip back to Thailand, the only holiday that she and Jack managed to take together. She goes to source the story behind a photo that Jack took on their trip but when she’s disappointed with the truth, she meets a Canadian man and fellow solo traveller called Justin. Despite her grief, she ends up having a really wonderful time dotted with lovely moments of happiness and peace. It was at this point in the book where I really started to be certain that Chloe was going to be just fine.

There are even a couple of little bits of wisdom to the phone-obsessed among us. There is something about a grief-centred story that makes both the character and the reader very reflective about life and its fragility. Suddenly nothing that seemed to be so very important matters at all when someone we love dies, especially when it’s unexpected. So much about Chloe and Jack’s romance read so authentically, which upped the emotion whenever Chloe clearly missed him.

One character I didn’t really like was Chloe’s best friend Beth. Although she is there for Chloe, I felt that she came across as self-centred. The above passage is from the beginning of the book where Chloe turns up at Beth and her husband Fergus’ house to tell them about Jack’s death. It takes what seems like forever for Chloe to tell her because Beth goes on and on about mundane, unimportant things even though it’s obvious that Chloe is distressed. This meant that my first meeting with Beth consisted of screaming at her to shut the hell up!

There is also a lot of Scouse dialect in Chloe’s conversations mostly with Beth, her parents and brother. She says ‘me mum’ and ‘meself’ a lot which may confuse anyone not familiar with the Scouse accent. However, it wasn’t really consistent. Sometimes she used ‘my mum’ and ‘myself’ and I didn’t really notice this only being reserved for Southern characters. Perhaps this could have done with a little more editorial attention.

I think Chloe’s mum Sue shares many traits with all of our mums. Their relationship is very relateable -fraught with prickly tension but still full of love. Sue seems to be forever disappointed by her unambitious, single, 30-something daughter and Chloe seems to be forever trying to impress her. It’s an age-old dynamic that most women I know will be able to recognise, so I can only assume it was written from experience!

Love, Almost is a heartfelt story about one woman’s journey from unimaginable grief to acceptance and hope. It has been touted as great for fans of Jojo Moyes but I actually found it a lot more light-hearted than what I’ve read of her books. Chloe doesn’t just embark on a journey out of her grief. She also rediscovers her passion and reason to live. Yes, it revolves around a tragic death but this novel is ultimately about living life to the fullest.

I really enjoyed this book. It was sad, joyful, heartbreaking and wonderful all at the same time. Easy to read and wonderfully written. Would recommend!

This book. Urgh, this book. It broke my heart into a million pieces. I was up until 3 am last night, crying for Chloe, and for the future she never got the chance to be in. Hayley Doyle is such a wonderful author! Her choice of words and plotline touched my heart in the best way possible. 💜

I needed a good cry, and I picked up the perfect book! I don't think I've ever felt the need to hug a character so badly, until Chloe came along. Her story showed that people may die, but the love we share with others stays forever. Grief and loss make people stronger, and the book perfectly reflected this statement through Chloe. I read Love, Almost with a heavy heart, but I kept finding the hidden message of hope in the story through and through.

If you loved P.S I Love You, I highly recommend picking this up! 💞

This book had such a heartbreaking premise, yet also conveyed a message of hope and healing after the death of a loved one. Chloe’s shattering story is written so beautifully, I was moved to tears watching her fall apart.

We watch Chloe break. We watch her struggle to come to terms with Jack’s death, and we watch her attempt to get her life back on track after this devastating event. I loved reading every minute of it. As she moved through the stages of grief, without a very helpful support network, all I wanted to do was hug her! She needed to know that everything she was feeling was normal. That her feelings were valid. To lose Jack the beginning of their love story, would have been absolutely devastating.

As I watched Chloe attempt to finish off all the plans they had made together during their five-month relationship, all I wanted was for her to find her closure. Choe was such a strong protagonist, yet some of the characters made me want to smack them with the book! Although they probably meant well, many of them really weren’t helpful during her grieving process. My heart broke for Chloe!

I loved this book so much. The way grief was explored was so real, devasting and yet the end made me feel hopeful. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. As much as it hurts, life will go on, and that alone made me teary. I will not stop recommending this book!

Thank you so much for allowing me to read “Love, Almost”.

Love Almost deals with grief. Chloe has to grieve her boyfriend after only being with him for 5 months. I like how this deal with a different side of grief, Chloe is grieving what could have been. I enjoyed this story but it was too long and dragged in the middle. I got bored reading it but I enjoyed the ending and seeing Chloe grow and heal from what happened.

This was such a sad book. While it defiantly tugged on my hearts strings, it was still a great read.

First of all let me say how much I love this cover. So simple but yet so effective and thought provoking a little like the book. This is the story of Chloe who meets Jack her soulmate and falls head over heels, in love with in.

Imagine meeting the one, moving in with him or her and then it all being taken away from you, within five months. You're still so wrapped up in the initial honeymoon stages and can't get enough of each other that, your friends haven't met you or each other yet, his parents don't know who you are or how important you were to him. I can't even imagine!

This book is so sad but also so lovely. After Jacks sudden death, Chloe goes on a journey of self discovery, finding things about about herself but also about Jack. A beautiful book, with a really unique concept which I loved, even if it did make me ugly cry.

I haven't read the author previously but she will definitely be added to my list to check out other books she has written. A beautiful book.

Thank you for Netgalley for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

My rating scale
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Absolutely loved it! Gave me a warm fuzzy feeling or made me cry. And took me on an emotional rollercoaster.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Really liked it. Will read more by the author and other books in the series.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - It was just okay, didn’t move me, but don’t feel like I wasted me time reading it either.
⭐️⭐️ - Didn’t like this book and probably won’t read other in the series.
⭐️ - I did not care for this book at all and feel like I wasted my time reading it

I really wanted to like this book and I expected it to hit me with all the feels and emotions. However, I just got the opposite. I did not connect to any of the characters, especially Chloe. Everyone seems to be one-dimensional characters and there's a lot of unnecessary and long descriptions and monologues that it hinders my enjoyment of the book.

Fantastic read. I have been completely unable to put this one down. I cannot wait to read more by this author.
Full review to follow

Love Almost by Hayley Doyle is a contemporary romance novel about Chloe and Jack. They have dated for mere five mothers, and have made so many lists and plans to do things together. But life has different plans and Jack meets with an accident. Chloe is left all alone and doesn't know what to do.

I am usually not someone who prefers reading books like these. Dealing with grief and loss, I am not very emotionally expressive towards these things when it comes to books. But I really enjoyed reading this book, somehow. It was totally more than what I had expected and it was so nice to read about Chloe.

Chloe and his family, as well as Jack's family thought she did not know much about Jack to actually be grieving about the same. The book actually starts and gives out a very important message as you what love is and how loving someone is such a subjective experience that it cannot be generalized or as much cannot be compared to a timeframe.

Telling much about this story is only going to give more and more spoilers. So all I am going to say it the book is sad, emotional, thought provoking as well as very touching and emotional at the same time. I liked Chloe, I liked how she moves forward in her life and is strongly dealing with grief.
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Thank You to NetGalley and Publisher - Avon Books UK for providing me eARC in exchange for a honest opinion.

Love Almost tells a tragic love story of Chloe and Jack.
As it opens, I was instantly drawn in to how much fun the couple were having. Then suddenly, tragedy hits and Jack is killed. We then follow Chloe’s process of grieving and moving on without Jack.
Unfortunately, I felt that the book lost it’s way. Jack’s funeral seemed to show how little his friends and family knew of Chloe. They were a thirty something couple who were living together - but she seemed to be a total outsider.
I did finish the book but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would have read earlier reviews.

Good read one to curl up with on a Sunday afternoon. Would read more by this author. Good characters and likeable/

‘Love, Almost’ is a lovely story about love, loss, and how you move forward after losing the person you love. This was an unforgettable, emotional read. If you enjoyed PS I love you, you will certainly enjoy this one.
My thanks to Net Galley, the author and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.