Here are my thoughts on Don't Let Me Go

So, I didn’t actually realise that Kevin Christopher Snipes, the author of this book, Don’t Let Me Go, was also the author of Milo and Marcos at the End of the World. This was one of those things that I didn’t realise until I bought this book after a friend sent me it thinking the concept would be something I’d be into.

The blurb says out and proud, Riley Iverson knows there’s nothing more cringe than crushing on a straight boy. But from the moment that the handsome and sporty Jackson Haines walks into his life, Riley can’t help but feel an undeniable connection. Mainly because, as impossible as it seems, Jackson is the spitting image of the boy who’s recently appeared in Riley’s dreams – dreams set in another time and another place where he and Jackson are desperately in love. Soon these dreams morph into increasingly vivid nightmares. But no matter where or when these visions play out, two things remain consistent: Riley and Jackson are always together, and they always die at the end. Forced to consider the possibility that their burgeoning relationship might be propelling them headfirst into their own tragic ending, the boys have to decide: Is it worth staying apart to save their lives if the price is forsaking a love that has defied not only time and space but death itself?

We open on Pompeii, 79AD, with Lucius and Marcus. They’re eighteen and in love and avoiding the fact that Marcus’s father wants him to marry this woman so that he and the woman’s father can together have the largest vineyards in Italy. But their story never gets told as, shockingly, Vesuvius erupts in the distance. Just as an aside, I think it such an odd coincidence that I’ve read two books in such a short time where Vesuvius has erupted. Regardless, the book then jumps to present day Florida, to Riley, who has just woken up at the Summer Carnival after fainting and swearing he was just in Italy. He ends up seeing Marcus from his dreams, who is actually Jackson – one of his friends’ neighbours. The POV pops over to Jackson, who says he’s failed a bunch of people back in Tallahassee and that with the was Riley is looking at him, he thinks he might know what happened – so, gag it, something happened. Shocker, I know.

At first, I just thought the initial chapter in Pompeii was just going to be a thing to tell me that Riley and Jackson were Lucius and Marcus (side note, Snipes having two characters called Marcus in as many books – if you ignore differing spellings lol) in a past life. But with the Pompeii sections being dreams, the book hopped between the time periods, if only for a short time. I quite liked going back to Pompeii, especially when the second Pompeii chapter is mid-eruption. I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t more set in Pompeii. I understood that after Vesuvius erupted that there couldn’t have been much more, but I wanted more. Especially since the next period in the past was World War 2 era London… So, in the past, Riley and Jackson are doomed to die, like the blurb says, but it’s only because they’re in settings that’ll kill them. Like, girl, obviously they’re going to die in Pompeii, and obviously they’re at massive risk of dying in World War 2 London. You know how Jack and Charlie (the boys in that era) could have survived? Leaving London. I’m certain there was a scheme in place during World War 2 England where people specifically moved from not only London, but major cities, out into the countryside. Those two literally didn’t have to die. But I will say, the London sections, coming from a Brit, definitely read like someone trying to write British people. I feel like that might be mean, but throwing a few British-isms around does not a British character make.

I always find it so odd whenever books have scenes where people share their favourite videos, or TikToks – as an aside, I do think that books mentioning social media sites do run the risk of aging themselves, but I also don’t really care about that. I know that some people have very strong opinions on making pop culture references, but I’m not that bothered, unless it’s specific memes. But the point I was making, the videos that people share, they’re always exactly the same. It’s always family-friendly wholesome videos. Where are my favourite characters whose favourite videos are the brain rot ones you see? Where are the people seeing the videos that are my favourite – a recent one including a POV of Bang Chan of Stray Kids opening a shop in the 1950s after a nuclear blast where he only sells milk because that’s the only thing he can say. Where are those people? Why is it always innocuous animal videos? Where are the weird videos?

I enjoyed the two POVs. Obviously as Riley and Jackson get closer, Riley is fully convinced Jackson is straight, despite having a crush on him and then in Jackson’s POV, he’s fighting with his “man crush” on Riley. So, you’ve got Riley wanting to avoid Jackson, and Jackson basically feeling the opposite. Scream. This was definitely my favourite part of the book, if you ignore the two Pompeii chapters. I think my absolute favourite part of romance just in general. I love getting to see people either fall in love or start to realise that they have feelings for each other. I eat it up every time I see it.

I don’t know how I felt towards the end when we went from just a romance book of people who were bound souls to these souls suddenly trying to be killed by the universe. I seem to remember Snipes’ last book doing the exact same thing, where there’s a couple that the world is mysteriously trying to kill. And I remember not being the biggest fan of it since it was such a hard swerve. With this book, since you did see the boys’ past lives where they always died, it definitely made more sense for the book to take this wild swerve towards the end. I wouldn’t so much say that this one took a wild swerve like the last book, but it did kind of come out of nowhere for me. Riley and Jackson end up in a theme park that didn’t get mentioned anywhere prior in the book, at least with London and Pompeii it was something that you could see coming, and I understand that sometimes death is random, but I feel like in the context of this book, and in Riley and Jackson’s lifetime, it would have worked better had it been something foreshadowed. It was definitely a step in the right direction in this book. The best way I can describe it all is that in Snipes’ last book it didn’t really make much sense to me, whereas in this one, the choice to have the chapters in the past was definitely the right decision, because it did set up Riley and Jackson’s doomed relationship, I just wanted the foreshadowing of how it would have been doomed to be a bit more present. Unless I missed it, I think had there even just been a mention of Riley, Duy, Tala, and Audrey saying they wanted to go to the theme park, that would have been perfect.

Anyway, I still enjoyed this book. It might not have totally seemed like it from the things I’ve said throughout this post. It was definitely better, to me, than Snipes’ first book. My biggest, and only, complaint, really, is that I wish the setting the boys ended in had been foreshadowed. I liked the relationship the boys had, their back and forth, especially in the earlier phases of their relationship.

Okay, bye!