Friends to Lovers Series Volume 1 and 2 If He Had Been with Me + If Only I had Told Her

If He Had Been with Me #1-2

by Laura Nowlin

Friends to Lovers series | Volume 1 and 2 as soft cover

Genres: Romance, Young Adult, Audiobook, Love, Fiction, Friends To Lovers, Mental Health

752 pages, Unknown Binding

About the author

Laura Nowlin holds a B.A. in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from Missouri State University. . In addition to being ambitious writer Laura is also an avid reader who believes that books allow her to live many lives in one lifetime. When she isn’t at home agonizing over her own novels Laura works at the public library where the patrons give her plenty of inspiration for her writing. She lives in St. Louis with her musician husband, neurotic dog, and psychotic cat.

Reviews

[Ava Praet · Rating 1 out of 5]

take off that goddamn tiara

[Addison · Rating 1 out of 5]

One day read , but I thought it was very boring in terms of the plot and everything just happening within the last 50 pages, really pretty cover though

[MAJUMA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished this book in almost a day. Never cried that much because of a book even though everything happened on the last couple of pages.
The style was different to books I’m used to read but honestly I enjoyed it 🫶🏼

[Adelyn Tubbs · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by a close friend. We are now no longer friends.

[Olive Garden Breadsticks · Rating 1 out of 5]

girl shut up

[Lauren Sapp · Rating 1 out of 5]

There was a lot of hype about this book and after reading it I do not understand why. The book is slow, juvenile, and boring. You could summarize this entire story in about 90 seconds without missing anything important. The main character whines constantly, is extremely needy, and completely ignorant to what is going on around her. She lacks insight, about anything, and the relationships she has make very little sense to me. I was grossly disappointed and almost DNF. I stuck it out, but feel like I wasted my time.

[jolene vand · Rating 5 out of 5]

what the fuck bro. what the fuck. i think this book just physically ripped my heart out, stomped on it, and then stuck it in a shredder. the ending has me absolutely sobbing and i feel like i just lived through that entire book with her. i love reading so much i can’t even explain it, like i am able to feel things through someone else’s life and this one really does it for me. i’m not gonna lie, for a good 250 pages of the book it’s mostly just her life in high school and it was interesting but the plot only truly began more towards the end. other than that, i will be looking to read more books by laura nowlin. (ps the message to her husband thanking him for knowing how to write about true love was so fuckung adorable.) autumn and finny are beautifully developed characters with such a complex relationship that you can’t even describe it you just feel it. autumn also reminds me so much of bella swan in the way her depression affected her, and quite honestly it made me want to play possibility by lykke li on repeat the entire book. i highly recommend this book if you feel like crying at 1:45 am.

[Belle Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

naming my first born finny. literally so good. had me giggling and kicking my feet. i am in love with phineas smith 🩷🩷🩷🩷

[cordy m · Rating 5 out of 5]

cried

[Sofia · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only impressive thing about this book was my capability to finish it. Cus it got interesting at page 383,the book is 391 pages….

[Layla Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew what was gonna happen but when it happened it hit HARD. Had me thinking about it for months genuinely still tear up a little if I think about it too hard. Read this if you need a good cry.

[Jennifer J Knorr · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a very depressing book. Wish it wouldn't have given the ending away at the beginning of the book.

[Kayla Marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

stfu. people like this book??? no plot. no point. Ending was not worth it.

[Amber Strain · Rating 1 out of 5]

I absolutely did not like this book. I didn't like the way it was wrote. It was too childish for me.

[Alex Khozin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m shocked I need to stop reading tiktok books. This was the worst book I’ve ever read in my life aside from daisy jones. And who cried from this book???? I’m shocked

[olivia miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m going to need 3-7 business days to recover from this

[Aishat Abdul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my god this book was so fucking boring….
This was like reading a bunch of diary entries of things that happened on a day-to-day basis like….
What’s more is that the non-existent plot that I had the misfortune of reading for practically 370 pages finally introduced itself in the last thirty pages wtf???
No build up or anything just, “on august 8th, Phineas Smith died.” Like huh???? Like a fucking anti-beat drop it was. This book was literally just a girl denying her feelings for a guy and then suddenly, “I love Finny.” And Jamie conveniently makes things easier for her by cheating on her so that we don’t antagonise her when she gets with finny (by cheating on Jamie like I thought she would).
I’m genuinely angry that I spent my coins on such a non-existent plot ridden book, but I’m angrier that absolutely nothing noteworthy happened until that last fucking thirty pages. Fuck this book man….

[McKenna Shea · Rating 1 out of 5]

no cause wtf was this bs

[Abby · Rating 1 out of 5]

girl SHUT UP!

[MacKenzie Bell · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book made me angry in a mildly concerning way thank u

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this book because of the TikTok hype - that was a mistake. I found it very boring and no character development. Was told the ending was going to make me cry. If you meant cry tears of boredom then I guess you’re right

[Chloe · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give it a 0 I would. The starting basically gives away the ending.

[Ara · Rating 1 out of 5]

spent 3 damn months reading this absolute monstrosity

[Genni 若林🍉]

Does anyone know the age rating on this… my little sisters reading it and I don’t want to be nosey but I just wanna make sure it’s age appropriate 😭

[S S · Rating 1 out of 5]

I know this book had a lot of hype behind it, but there was little to no plot. I understood the need for the immature tone of the book due to the characters being teens-young adults and it made me think of my mentality at that age. BBBUUUTTTTTTT it was the lack of advancement of the book. I just read a lot of nothing. I wish we could have seen more of Finny’s POV in the book 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲 or the relationships with her friends be more deep. It just felt superficial. I wonder if this was done intentionally since this book does give me a more of a mundane high school vibes in a realistic tone, but by 200 pages the book did not progress I was just pushing my self to finish it.

UPDATE:

I review books based off the vibes they give me and these are the emotions this book stirred up in me:

I felt like I was reading a diary of an antsy teen thinking she is deeper than she truly is. But lets face it, who didn’t at 14-19. I could have been more forgiving with the book if it had a diary entry format instead of the 1st person perspective. Being in Autumns brain 🧠 made me feel unstable, indifferent, superficial, depressed, antsy, and so much I can’t describe correctly. But then again if this was the authors goal than I get it. It made me feel like I was in high school all over again. This to me is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes I miss the simplicity of those times for sure. I just expected more character development as the book progressed but we didn’t see that. All we saw instead was what felt to me like filler chapters. Her journey felt like a lot of nothing was going on. I needed more time with Finny to really appreciate his loss. Her maybe being pregnant did not surprise me or even her attempt at killing her self either. Her being called a go getter and her not “going and getting it” surprised me because the author did not describe anything she did as a “go getter” or “bold”. In the end I was left with wanting more because the theory of the story could have been spectacular.

[Hanne Frooninckx · Rating 5 out of 5]

If only i knew how much i would cry during this book…

I saw this book about a 1000 times on TikTok and i needed to read it, so of course i went to the book store and bought it so i can take notes and label it (because why not?!)
The first few chapters were a little bit boring (the first one was the best thing i’ve ever read) but after a wile I couldn’t stop reading! The story was a bit predictable but before i new it, i already cried 4times and had 3 mental breakdowns…🫢

I really loved the friends to lovers bond Autumn and finn had. They did everything together, until middle school, for some reason they fell apart. Despite their mothers being best friends, and neighbors, they still had “family-time” together.
They still went to the same school but grew apart for some reason, but what if they didn’t, would things be different?

My feelings during reading this book were all over the place, I cried, I laughed, i jumped around, …
This book was the best i have ever read! The things i would do to read it for the first time again, you don’t wanna know…

Now Laura Nowlin got me al messed up, she want me to read his pov??? She just knew i will definitely do it but, WHY 😭 I don’t want to go through all of that again, but i will!!!

[*ੈ✩‧₊˚Eva°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was easy to read and I really enjoyed it. I just wish the ending could have been a little longer. I really liked the characters

[Abbie Hulme · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW I’m sat here crying… still processing the book was so good and can’t wait for the second one. One of my longer reads but so worth it and couldn’t put it down. Loved finny with my whole heart and want a boy in my life like that! However everything did happen in the last 20pages …

[Jaspen Barker · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was incredibly slow and juvenile. The main character was whiney and needy and just hard to take to.

[Sophia Portas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dont understand when books are so slow the entire time then everything happens in the last 20 pages. Like could’ve been so much better . Also surely the tiaras could’ve been left out