This Raging Light was so good so I had high expectations for this one! I don’t know why it just so happens that every single time that I enjoy the first book, the next one ruins it.

The writing style a okay but the story line just swerves off a bit and the romance really did not disappoint but also did not satisfy.

Great writing, engaging storyline and meaningful. Wasn't expecting it from this book but i'm glad i read it

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Having read the first book in this companion series, my expectations were different for this book, then the reality ended up being. While the first book was about two young sisters dealing with real parental drama and difficulties, this book was a continuation in a companion format. In the first book, Lucille was our main character and her best friend, Eden, was the supporting "actress", if you will... In this novel, Eden is our main character.

I enjoyed getting to know Eden better; however, it was not the Eden I had expected. When we saw her last, she had suffered a terrible accident that left her in a coma. In this book, we discover a very different girl - post medical issues - than the one we left behind.

Overall, the writing was great and the character development was good. I enjoyed the story - although, the supernatural stuff left me feeling confused, partially because it was completely unexpected from this storyline and partially because, as a reader, I was expected to buy into it and I just couldn't. The entire supernatural aspect of the story felt forced and fictional so I had a hard time connecting with that portion of the story. The rest of the story was sweet and wonderful to read.

I would definitely recommend this book to high school and older with a small upfront warning that some supernatural stuff is included in the story line.

Happy Reading and Enjoy!

I didn't know this book was a sequel before reading it.

Eden wakes up from a coma and has to remember her old life, piece together who she is and what she wants to do now. The story turns deep as it explores various thoughts on an afterlife and the meaning of our existence.

I liked that it placed an emphasis on family and friends, not only romance. It was a quick read and fast-paced.

This is a second in the series This Raging Light and you really need to read the first book to truly appreciate this one. It can get deep and emotional, and I think this really would not be for every reader. I recommend it to anyone who loves thought provoking YA.

Well, this was disappointing. I had a moment at around 50 pages in where I considered giving up on this book and I probably should have followed that instinct because I really didn't enjoy reading this book. I did think that some sections of the book were better than others but I spent most of my reading time wanting to reach the end just so I could move on to something else.

This book opens with Eden having an accident that leaves her in a coma. As she comes out of the coma, she has to slowly get back to her life which turns out to be a lot harder than you would imagine. She feels a strong connection to another coma patient on her floor Jaz and eventually forms a bound with Jaz's frequent visitor, Joe.

One of the key parts of the book revolved around what Eden experiences while in the coma. I really found that entire section of the book to be more confusing than interesting. I had to go back and read parts of that section several times and was still quite confused. It made sense by the end of the book but I had lost interest by that point.

I thought that the parts of the book involving Joe were much better. Joe was my favorite character in the book by a large margin. He was really a good guy. Eden and Joe's relationship was interesting and a bit unusual. Unfortunately, it seemed to take a really long time for the relationship between these two to even get started.

I will not be recommending this book to others. I am sure that some people will enjoy it a lot more than I did. I was able to get through the book and would be open to trying other works by Estelle Laure.

I received an advance reader copy of this book from HMH Books for Young Readers via NetGalley.

While I was back and forth on my feelings toward the magical realism contained in “But Then I Came Back,” I had to give it four stars for the beautiful portrayal of what it’s like to come back after a serious head injury. The struggles physically and mentally were portrayed well, but it also covered the existential questions that often come up after a life-changing event. That is something I have rarely seen in a novel. There is also a nice romance on the side. Recommended!

I'm actually kind of happy that I waited until the fall to pick this up, because I feel like it's very fitting for this time of year. I love stories of healing and recovery.- getting to see such strength in any character makes it really easy for me to relate to them. And as someone who is a character driven reader, I always appreciate the dedication to characters evolving in organic ways. I also liked that we get to see positive portrays of therapy and recovery. It wasn't a point of contention, and was looked at as a helpful tool.. I also liked that the romance in the story between Joe and Eden didn't eclipse the main story, but it did add warmth and kindness. While there was a lot that I liked, it did take me a bit to get hooked into the story. Overall, a very enjoyable read!

This is form an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

This book was a complete fail for me. It was not even a hot mess - it was a cold and poorly congealed mess which had no plot. The blurb tells us that "Eden is the only person who can get through to Jasmine, but is she brave enough to face a world that’s bigger and more magical than she ever would have allowed?"

I hate blurbs that ask the question which everyone in the entire universe, even non-sentient species, already knows the answer to: will she succeed in reclaiming her love? Of course she will. Will he get his man? Of course he will. Can the kid escape the evil villain's clutches? Of course the kid can. Why ask such dumb questions? Publishers in general just don't seem to get it: they continue to insult potential readers with lousy covers that have nothing to do with the story and with dumb questions in the blurbs. The flowers were not even roses. Publishers need to insist that the cover designer actually reads the freaking book before they start work. Please, publishers: treat us with some respect. We do not have to read your book. There are literally millions out there to read, so please be honest about the book, use a cover that actually has something to do with the story, and don't ask ridiculously juvenile questions in the blurb. It's tiresome, and we deserve better than that.

Questions like that tell me that whoever wrote the blurb thinks that potential readers of this story are gullible at best, and complete dumb-asses at worst. This is the very last book I shall ever request that has such a question in the blurb; I don't care how attractive a read it sounds. I shall avoid such books on pure principle in future, but funnily enough, that wasn't even the biggest problem with this blurb!

This book is the second in a loosely-connected series. I did not know this at the time I requested it, otherwise I would have bypassed it completely. I am not a series fan, but fortunately this read as a stand-alone. The only reason I went against my better judgment and requested it is that I discounted the "Hey dumb-ass listen to this!" blurb because I thought there would be a worthwhile underlying story: 17-year-old Eden Jones, herself fresh out of a short coma, is the only hope of reaching Jasmine, aka Jaz, aka Vasquez, as Eden names her, after the kick-ass woman in the Aliens movie.

I though it would make for a great story to have one ex-coma victim trying to reach another even if there were some supernatural elements, but the author all-but completely abandoned that idea in the pointless pursuit of yet another juvenile YA absurdist "love" story. Eden could have been such a strong character, but instead of that we got, once again, a female author of a YA story turning her lead female into a limp wet rag of a love-struck juvenile chasing Joe, Jasmin's best friend, like a bitch in heat. I've seen this exact same story a score of times before and it always makes me nauseous and it make me ditch the novel immediately as I did this one. Can YA authors not find anything original to say? If not, quit writing.

The saddest thing about this is that no one actually cared about Jasmin, a character who had been built up in Eden's mind at least, to be heroic, bad-ass, and worth learning more about. The more we learned about her the more interested I became, but Eden and Joe abandoned her in short order, so they could flirt and kiss, and smoke cigarettes. Yeah. Smoking In a YA novel. Smoking is bad for you and for those around you, and I know people do it in real life, but that does not mean that we, as writers, need to give it cachet.

And while all this was going on, Jasmin was about to have the plug pulled on her, yet nowhere do we see any sense or compassion or urgency from Eden or worse, from Joe. They came across as shallow and selfish. He refuses to let them pull the plug, but he seems completely unmotivated when it comes to even exploring, let alone finding a way out of this for Jasmin. She was completely subjugated to their own juvenile "romance".

At that point I began skimming the book to see if the blurb had lied completely and it pretty much had. It was once again bait and switch, because I skimmed a whole bunch more pages after the halfway point, and all the two of them did was talk about contacting Jasmin, visit a psychic, smoke cigarettes, and flirt and kiss. No. Just no. These people were boring and simply not worth reading about. There was nothing new here, nothing different, nothing worth pursuing. I cannot recommend it.

DNF.
This book just did not click with me for some reason, so I did not leave a review for it on any platform. I will give it a try again in the future - maybe it was a timing thing and I will connect with it in the future.

I didn’t like Eden as a narrator as much as I liked Lucille. There’s just something a little…chippy about her? I felt like she had this undercurrent of anger throughout a lot of her interactions with people. Then because Eden’s just woken up from a coma, there are some weird things that she sees that almost gives this book a magical realism feel to it where that was NOT present in the first book. It almost feels like a different genre.

The new characters that were introduced in the second book are interesting. I was a little confused, though, because apparently Eden has these two really good guy friends who are over all the time but who are never mentioned in the first book. I didn’t like the way that her new guy friends or even her parents and brother reacted to Eden at times. They got really angry with her when she didn’t want to do something–the girl just got out of a coma! I would think she’s allowed to not want to go to a club or party.

This book was interesting because we really get Eden’s point of view in the whole fallout between her and Lucille. Lucille really isn’t painted in the BEST light in this book, which was hard for me since I liked her so much in the first book. At the same time, I thought it was a great way of showing that there are two sides to every story, you know? I understood why Eden felt the way she did and ultimately why she reacted to Lucille how she did in the first book.

Overall, I thought both of the books in this series were pretty great. I think it would make more sense to read them in order, but you could definitely read them separately and I think the second book would still make sense…mostly.

Overall Rating: 4
Language: Moderate
Violence: Mild
Smoking/Drinking: Moderate
Sexual Content: Mild

Note: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this one. It was different from what I usually read. It has a story line that sucked me and keep me interested.

But Then I Came Back is the sequel to Estelle Laure’s absolutely stellar debut novel This Raging Light. It takes on a new tone, though, shifting its narration to Eden, the best friend of the previous book’s narrator.

Eden is a prima ballerina with big dreams of dancing professionally in New York City. All of that changes when she has an accident and almost drowns in a creek, causing her to fall into a long coma with slim chances of ever waking up again. When she defies the odds and opens her eyes, everyone seems to think that she’s a miracle. But Eden feels as though she’s the exact opposite. Through her recovery, she finds solace in her fascination with another coma patient on the floor and Joe, the boy who stands outside that patient’s room every day, watching.

Although this book is linked to This Raging Light, it would be fairly easy to pick up But Then I Came Back without reading the former. You might be a bit confused about a few minor details, but there wouldn’t be too much confusion.

Simply stated, I really enjoyed this book and being able to follow Eden’s story more extensively, beyond that of her side character gig in the first book. Eden’s character is deeply complex, and Laure did a phenomenal job of realistically tackling the challenges and effects of a near-death experience. The growth that Eden show was messy and real, something that I found very endearing throughout the novel.

4.5 STARS

HMH Books for Young Readers and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of But Then I Came Back. This is my honest opinion of the book.

But Then I Came Back is the story of Eden Jones, whose journey back after a coma is wrought with confusion, pain, and an overwhelming sense that something has been dramatically changed because of her experience in the unknown. A shocking recognition leads Eden to believe that life is totally different than she knew. A growing friendship with Joe helps fill her days, which leads Eden to certain realizations. Will Eden's unique experience qualify her to help someone in need?

Near death experiences and speculation of what lies beyond have been plot lines of many stories, some successfully done and some not. Although I do think that the author achieved great character development, especially in regards to Eden, the story itself was lacking. Only the barest of details were given into the reasons behind Eden's fight with her best friend, leading readers to feel confused when the author discloses it. Almost a third of the way into the book, Lucille's story takes shape, although it is really not even necessary to further the plot. The author could have easily conveyed Eden's feelings of abandonment without introducing extra plot lines. As near death experiences are not new concepts in books as of late, But Then I Came Back did not go far enough to separate itself from the other books in the genre.

Ydcyecydcydcgcurxydcyecyexudxurcyecydcurxkfxuevyexue yecufxurc6exuexysxuextexyexuf

A contemplative novel about afterlife and the impact of events in life, the story revolves around Eden, a secondary character from This Raging Light, who towards the end of that novel had an accident and slipped into a coma. Now, in But Then I Came Back, Eden wakes a month later to find out that her world has changed. She hasn't been around for the momentous changes that had wrapped up the previous novel, and in this new life where she is recovering basic human functions like eating and walking again, to find out that she has lost her best friend to her brother feels to her like she isn't even present in her life. Her psyche is definitely affected by the coma, and the recovery, but there has been another change - she can see black flowers all around, and she remembers the time of being In Between, where she had met another comatose girl Jaz(more specifically the girl in the bed next to her) that she forms an instant connection with.

Navigating this post-coma life, Eden struggles to figure out what ties her down to her life now. In the In Between, she was free from troubles and worries; living now feels like a burden (but not that she is suicidal). But along with Joe, Jaz's best friend, whom she promises to help to connect with Jaz, and some much-needed therapy, she starts to find reasons to rejoice in life. She starts to pick up the pieces and be optimistic in the face of an uncertain life, because the uncertainty of death has been alleviated some. Eden's character in TRL was not much known, but here she comes across as a focused, prickly in-control girl who came out of her coma a slightly more prickly version of herself.

Now, the romance, while a subplot, still drives the plot to quite a degree. Joe is somewhat similar to Digby in that both boys had a previous girl whom they felt strongly attached to, and felt guilty about their new feelings. Also, the hot-cold nature of their interactions were quite similar, as was the almost constant swooning on their respective girl lead's parts. It was, in a word, repetitive. And Lucille is pretty much a minor secondary character in this one, despite being Eden's best friend. Their friendship, which was so intense in TRL, is now a fizzled out firework, and while I felt it was more in response to Eden's after-coma life, I still felt a bit betrayed that their friendship had to change too.

Overall, it is an emotional, thought-provoking book and a good read for contemporary lovers.

I had heard a little about this from other bloggers before I received it so was excited to pick this up. I hadn’t realised however that this was a technical sequel to This Raging Light, a book I wasn’t so fond of. Luckily for me, this is a much quicker, wittier and well rounded book.

As far as YA contemporary books go, this really hit the mark. The story follows a young girl Eden as she wakes up from a coma after a month and finds herself having to acclimate into her former life.

I really liked Eden as a character. She feels like one of the more authentic YA leads I’ve read and as such it was very easy to follow her as she tries to get back into her life. It is also nice that there is no over-exaggeration in the way Laure depicts her ups and downs because I personally tend to find overstated details tend to drag a book down.

Eden finds comfort in the presence of another young coma patient Jasmine. It is through Jasmine that she meets and befriends Joe, who becomes a big part of the story and in helping Eden move forward. Laure has done a fantastic job of populating this book with well rounded and present characters that you can’t help but like.

Not without its flaws, this book is a great YA contemporary read to keep on your radar.

When I started reading But Then I Came Back, I didn't immediately realize it was a companion to This Raging Light--it was only at the very end that I was able to realize they were connected. I think that's really cool for fans of This Raging Light because it adds more to the story, but it's not so connected that someone couldn't just pick up But Then I Came Back off of the shelf and start reading it without reading the prior book.
This was a very believable story, and Eden was an extremely realistic character for a YA novel. I like that she didn't immediately bounce back from being in a coma like so many characters in YA literature who magically heal from being sick and go back to regular life. I was rooting for Joe and Eden from the very beginning, and my little fangirl heart died a little during every romantic scene, but I wish there was more. Lastly, there's Jasmine. She was such an incredible character, but I feel like she got lost in the story, and I would have really liked for her to have a larger part.
Now lets talk about some of the things I didn't really like. The beginning for me was a little bit confusing, but that passed (thankfully). Also, the story seemed to get...distracted in some parts--going off on tangents and things just unrelated to the main story line. And that is it for the dislikes! I really overall liked this book, and I am so thankful to have received an ARC of it.

In conclusion, I give But Then I Came Back Four stars for being an interesting, believable story filled with such incredible characters. I highly suggest this to anyone looking for a realistic read that can be easily read in one sitting.

Having read Estelle Laure's debut novel last year, I was anticipating her next foray into young adult fiction. When I saw that it (But Then I Came Back) available on NetGalley I was very happy, but I didn't realize that it was a sequel of sorts. The summary mentions nothing about this book being connected to the author's debut, This Raging Light, which I would recommend reading first. It isn't necessary exactly, but I felt like I benefited from a brief refresher.

Eden, the main character in But Then I Came Back, was the best friend of the main character from Estelle Laure's debut, This Raging Light. When I consulted my review for that novel, I realized that this book was actually going to be really good because I hadn't been satisfied with the way Eden's story had ended in the previous book. Now she is the main character and we get to see her story, different as it is because she is recovering from the coma she's been in for a month.

The voice of the characters continues to be authentic in the work and with the difficulties that they faced, I'm glad for that because if it had been over-exaggerated, I think the book would have taken a downturn and been a stinker.

The atmosphere was a bit different than This Raging Light; the comparison in the summary to Francesca Lia Block, my introduction into magical realism, is accurate. There are moments where it feels a bit strange, going through Eden's recovery with her and trying to reconcile coming back to this life and dealing with the feeling that something's not quite right, not quite in the now. It reminded me of the books I used to love when I was Eden's age, which I realize now probably had some narrative issues, but are still mellow, enjoyable reads.

Estelle Laure delivered a fluid, realistic book that had elements of the fantastic in it, the afterlife reaching inexorably toward Eden as she recovers from her coma and tries to find her footing in our world, a world she doesn't feel familiar with anymore. What has she left behind and where is she going? These questions are wrapped around characters both familiar to Estelle Laure's readers and new to them, providing updates and new obstacles and relationships for them to develop in their own book.

This sophomore novel was a very good read; not quick, but slow in an agreeable way. This author will be one to return to again after having shown her writing chops off with This Raging Light and finessing them with But Then I Came Back.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into with this book as it's not part of my normal reads. Every now and then I like to try something new, and I'm glad I took a change on this one of a kind book.

This book really pulls at the heart strings, it was real. The plot stayed on point, I wasn't left confused nor was I dragged into any plot holes. The writing had a almost musical ton that kept you hooked. It was hard to put this book down for a second.

I don't want to say too much about what actually happens, there are somethings that are better left unsaid, but in saying that, you have to read this book. It takes you into the world of recovery, heartache and moving on. It will bring tears to your eyes and warm your heart, all while making you wonder how this author could do such thing with only words.

I highly recommend this book, it is truly one of a kind and is worth the read.

Happy Reading

E.A. Walsh