I was pleasantly surprised by this one. It started out like maybe it wasn't going to be up my alley, but I'm glad I stuck with it interesting twists and turns

Someone recommended this website for book reviewers and I thought it will be a great opportunity to read more. First book that showed on my newsfeed was Back Before Dawn by Kerry Peresta. Upon reading the description, I was drawn on the part of mystery on what happens at dawn: more like a thriller Cinderella in my mind, if you will. I would like to thank you for an opportunity and get a ARC.

Before I begin the whole review, I would like to say that this book goes under my did-not-read list, which is kind of a spoiler to the whole thing. I read until page 111/260 (43%) and I decided that I need to move on to other books.

The book is about a single mom who found browsing and meeting men through online dating a recreational hobby; an escape from her busy yet boring daily life consisting of juggling motherhood, keeping a job with a sexist environment and being a good friend to those who are there for her. However, the hobby took a dark turn and became an addiction, one that she can hardly resist.

If you look at the cover, it screams romance or young adult genre but this book was listed under mystery/thriller. The first part confirms it and I liked how it jumped straight to it right away. This made me expect that it will be more of a fast paced story. I was waiting for more exciting things to happen. However, it was just really small thriller smoke and at some point, became quite repetitive.

The main character was just plain annoying. I do understand that she is addicted, that it is a sickness and she needed more help than she had. I just do not understand how she can continue doing what she does after all the continued consequences she faces, not just once a day but almost everywhere: her house, her dates and her workplace. Plus, she can see what it does to her family. I can't empathize with her even the slightest bit. I have given Izzy so many chances but I can only do so much chapters before I can be irritated just reading her dialogues. As you may have guessed, I did not encounter even a bit of character development from her. Unfortunately, that is not where it ends. I hated almost everyone on it, except for two characters. I estimate that I have encountered two characters so far and only them were acting based on common logic, yet I did not feel any gravitational pull towards them since they were even barely there.

The pacing was inconsistent for me. As I mentioned, the first part got me on the edge of my seat, like I have to keep reading to know what happened and how it happened. Then, everything went slow motion to a point where I even felt like I was living her own daily life in a bad way. Almost everybody read fictional books as a means of an escape for the routines of our own lives, I do not need to get sucked into another one like Izzy's. After couple of chapters, there will be another mystery that the author drops to keep me reading which was effective, the first time. It gets repetitive, though it was not predictable, it does not come as a surprise to me anymore. It is more of a 'Thank you, next!' situation. I wanted more, yet all I got was annoying Izzy who can't stop herself from risking her and her family's life everyday.

One thing that I did like was an unexpected surprise where the author decided to change the POV into a third person, depending on where the chapter was. I liked the refreshing view of the story.

Since this is an advance copy, I did notice couple of typographical error. I started to list them one by one but gave up around page 80. It is mostly commas and quotation marks that I got lost whether it was a dialogue or a narrative.

Overall, obviously I did not like the book as I can not even read more into it. I found one reason to read more but way more reason not to. I just wished it would have been more of a faster pacing, or drop bigger hints on what may happen in the end if all the exciting stuff happens on the last 50 pages.