Hello, biggest Carlino fan here. I’ve inhaled every book of hers I’ve read. She is one of my queens of relatable, emotional reads. I spent the first 40% convinced this was going to be a 5 star read. If I could erase the last 15% of this book from my mind, I would. What the hell was that? It felt like I stopped reading a book I was enjoying and picked up some random trauma porn instead. I can’t recall an enjoyable book ever giving me whiplash like that.

The majority of this book is fantastic. Despite not personally loving the ending, I know a few other readers who did. Give it a shot! Recommend to fans of emotional romances or marriage in crisis trope.

The whole time I was reading this book it was a 3.5 star from me. I felt that I knew from the very beginning that the couple would be working their way back to each other after their divorce. I enjoyed the look at coparenting and challenges associated with that. I also enjoyed the difficulties between navigating how to be newly single/dating and not getting immediately tied down. I thought the lead up to the divorce was a little lengthy and became a whole bunch of complaining that made me less excited to pick up the book. Once things started moving, I was more invested in the characters and their soon to be return to romance. I think both characters were pretty unlikeable but the record player moments were a good way of bringing it back to earth. Obviously, the emotional gut punch at the end of the book is a Carlino classic and had me crying at the dining room table on my lunch hour. The unraveling of that emotional moment and coming months is what led to me bumping this up to a 4.

Loved this book! Not a typical romance novel but really adored it all the same. Very emotional and I loved that it was dual POV.

🦇 This Used to Be Us Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD What's something you've learned about love that you would want your younger self to hear? ❓

🦇 Once fiercely in love, Dani and Alex can barely stand the sound of each other’s voice. In the wake of a fresh divorce, they decide to share a nesting apartment, swapping days there or with their two boys at home. The distance gives them the chance to reflect on the last two decades of their marriage—why they fell in love and why everything fell apart. Dani's collection of albums, covered in notes about their past, reminds them just how much love once bound them together. Are those reminders enough to lead them back toward love?

💜 I first encountered Renee Carlino's writing in 2013, when Sweet Thing was released, and have waited for something new since 2019, after The Last Post. To see her name on Netgalley for this book sparked a rush of excitement, like getting a call from an old friend after a few years of silence. Renee Carlino has always excelled at developing strong, emotionally bound relationships. The relationship between Dani and Alex is filled with history (some of which we get small glimpses of, via Dani's album collection and notes from their past). Dani is an emotionally driven character, and those emotions scream off the page; bitter resentment, heartache over a lost love, and everything in between. I had to put the book down a few times at the beginning, simply out of frustration.

💙 While you SEE those emotions, you don't feel it. Every sentence of this story was Tell, not Show, making paragraphs blocky, sentences slatted. Despite the heavy mess of emotions in this book, you don't emotionally connect with either character. Instead, their animosity toward each other makes it difficult to even LIKE either of them. Given the way the story is set up, with Dani's notes on the albums, there's an amazing opportunity for flashbacks--to Show, rather than Tell us, how love can conquer all. We only get a few of those glimpses, and it's not enough. Instead, the present seems to drag them further apart, before rushing them back together without raw, emotional development. The story could have ended with one of the boys, writing their own note on one of the albums. While I love the full-circle concept of the last chapter, it doesn't feel as powerful or emotional as it could have been. What was one of my most anticipated books of the year is now one of the most disappointing.

✨ The Vibes ✨
🌸 Contemporary Fiction
🌸 Marriage/Divorce
🌸 Second Chance Romance
🌸 Miscommunication
🌸 TW: Miscarriage

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book. #ThisUsedtoBeUs

💬 Quotes
❝ In the beginning, Alex and I were like two opposite magnets in a drawer. My north to his south. We grew closer and closer together … until we fused. It was then that we became the same, too alike … too close. We were so close, so similar, we started to repel one another. We lost our identities and surrendered to being a couple. To being a mom and dad with no singular identities, no separateness, no autonomy. Now I’m seeing him again from the other side of the drawer and there are so many things I want to tell him. ❞
❝ “You are my Times New Roman. The original, bold and classic.”❞

I had a hard time connecting. I have known people who divorced and instead of the children going back and forth between parents, the parents were the ones that moved in and out of the home. The fact that I knew others that tried this made me want to read the book. Unfortunately, the characters were flat to me. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC. This review is my own.

This Used To Be Us by Renee Carlino

My rating:
3/5
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Renee Carlino is an instant buy author for me so when I saw this one on netgalley I was so excited!

While I typically love the author’s writing, this one was sadly a miss for me. It just didn’t feel the same.

I was not emotionally attached to the characters and had a feeling how this book would go every step of the way. It just felt like nothing really was going on besides marital issues, bickering and resentment. I felt like the author maybe had some personal connections to the story so I am happy if so that she shared her story with the world?

While this wasn’t my personal favorite, I absolutely think you should read Before We Were Strangers and Swear on This Life by the author! Those ones were both 5 star reads for me!

Thank you netgalley and Random
House Publishing for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This will be published on July 9th of 2024!

NetGalley Review — my rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

“This Used To Be Us” by Renee Carlino is a novel surrounding main characters, Dani and Alex, newly divorced after 22 years together. Once madly in love, they can’t be in the same room without bickering now. This book navigates their newly divorced status while flashing back to moments of their relationship that made it great.

This wasn’t the Renee I know and love. First time I’ve ever been disappointed by one of her books, but it did redeem itself in the end. If I was more invested in these characters, I may have gotten emotional towards the end but this one lacked something on my end.

If you’re a Carlino fan, let me know what you think! This novel is set to be released July 9, 2024!

#netgalley #reneecarlino #thisusedtobeus

Thank you Random House Publishing and Net Galley for the ARC for my honest review. This Used to Be US is on par with Renee Carlino's other books. Basically romances that emotionally tear your guts out. She's similar to Colleen Hoover but with more emotionally intelligent characters. Alex and Dani are navigating their divorce, sharing a nest apartment so one of them will always be at their house with the kids. Th I s was a solid read, but I really did not get a sense of either character and why they fell in love or why they hated one another.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing, for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I was so excited to receive this book because every book I've read by Renée Carlino has been a 5 star, Swear on this life is one of my all-time favorites and Before We Were Strangers was another beautifully written book.
This book follows Danielle and Alexander, and their marriage is falling apart. When they decide to divorce to make it less challenging for their two teenage boys, they decide to get an apartment and rotate their time at the house with the boys.
This book is about the struggles of marriage, divorce, and family trauma, and I feel like it was handled beautifully. I loved how this book felt realistic and dealt with mature adult issues. It was refreshing to read something so real and relatable. Renée Carlino's writing is so beautiful and poetic that it's hard to put her books down. The end of the book had me in tears. I was completely sobbing.
This book releases July 9th, 2024, and I highly recommend everyone read it!

Wow.. just wow I really loved this book. The writing was very well done and left me with a renewed sense that every day is a gift, even on the worst of them. I agree with other reviewers that there are some very sad moments, but it's also very real and beautiful at the same time.

The book centers around Alex and Dani and their marriage/divorce struggles. I don't want to give too much away because it won't do it justice. Just trust me on this one and read it!

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately this book didn’t work for me. I have loved many of Carlino’s books. Before We Were Strangers was a top read for me. This book was so hard to get through. I didn’t really like any of the characters and their dislike for each other was just so off putting. I only truly felt something in the last 10% which was the only saving grace for this book and so unbelievably heartbreaking. The love they shared in the past that showed up in snippets made my heart happy because I felt the emotion and care and love. I wish the whole book was like that. 😞

I really liked this story, and feel that it is an important one worth telling. It focuses on the importance of appreciating your partner and the people in our lives.

In this story Danielle and Alex are divorcing after 22 years. Instead of having their teenage boys move between two homes, they get an apartment, where they rotate staying while the other is with the kids at their home. While they have time away from each other, they both have time to really reflect on why they fell in love, what they love about each other, what went wrong. I really liked the reflections and memories of their happy times together. It was messy, and as a child of divorce, it was really relatable. This is definitely a heavier read.

However, the ending which I won’t spoiled really just felt unnecessarily sad and I really enjoyed the book until then.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advance review copy in return for an honest review.
Oh my gosh this book wrecked me. I loved everything about the characters, the family everything.

3.75 stars rounded up. Overall, an easy, good and emotional read about ….life. How life and loss shape a life, how they erode relationships and foundations.

We follow Alex and Dani through their separation and get flashbacks into their early relationship. While I enjoyed the plot + prose, I didn’t feel it.

However, there’s lots of build up for the last part of the book, neither big reveal surprised me. However, I did FEEL the ending of this book. It was poignant and thought provoking.

Advance reader copy provided by The Dial Pess and NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

I've heard so many great things about Renee Carlino's books, so I was especially looking forward to to reading THIS USED TO BE US! However, I sort of had mixed feelings about this one. I loved the premise of the story and thought the characters were very well-developed—they had their unlikable moments, but that just made them feel all the more complex and real. My main qualm with the book is that I felt like there were some pacing issues, particularly related to the ending. I thought it felt a little abrupt and rushed, and didn't completely fit with the rest of the story. While this one wasn't fully for me, I'd be interested in picking up more of Carlino's books in the future—I really liked her writing style, and thought this book was beautifully written! I would also still recommend that other readers give THIS USED TO BE US a try, because I do think a lot of people are going to love it. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Dial Press for the ARC.

I love Renee Carlino! Swear on This Life and Before We Were Strangers are two of my favorites. They were both insanely emotional, but this book…this book destroyed me. I expected no less from Renee Carlino, but honestly thought I was getting out unscathed for the longest time. I didn’t feel emotional or even feel that invested, but then it hit and when it did, it was deep, it was raw and it was so fucking real. It’s not your typical romance and honestly there were times I didn’t want to root for anyone, but the emotional toll this book took on me cut deep and I may never recover, thanks Renee.

This Used to Be Us by Renee Carlino was an emotional and beautiful story. It did take me a while to get into the story but once I got into it, I was hooked and wanted to see what life had in store for Dani and Alex. This story was told in dual POV which was perfect for this book. It was important to be able to see the thoughts and feelings of each of the main characters. I like how music was such a big part of their story and how songs were attached to important memories. That made it feel so real, since we all have heard a song and it has taken us back to a specific moment in time.

I think I may have had a hard time getting into the book because I couldn't relate to the characters and their marriage, but once I continued on I could relate to some of the emotions and vulnerabilities of the characters.

This book will be published on July 9, 2024. Have the tissues ready and enjoy the emotional ride and beauty of this love story.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for an advanced copy of this ebook. I voluntarily read it and gave an honest review.

I will be publishing this review on Goodreads tomorrow and will publish an edit on Instagram next week. I will attach both links below after published.

I loved this book! It’s unlike others I have read. It follows a couple who was married for over twenty years and are going through a divorce with two kids. The writing flowed and felt very authentic. Be prepared for laughter, heartbreak and tears.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc. All opinions are my own.

This felt like the movie The Story of Us in book format.

Well Carlino has written many of my favourite romances this one was more of a mixed bag.

I loved the reverse love story, second chance romance is a favourite trope and I do feel like this book was realistic, however both of the characters were so awful for a majority of the book I didn’t really care enough about them in the latter half of the story, I wish the author had maybe highlighted more of them at their best to contrast the eye roll inducing behaviours.

But I will say I did bawl my eyes out at the end.

A very mid read.

Renee Carlino knows how to shatter my heart and then piece it back together. I fell in love with the characters and the story. I loved the unique premise of divorced lovers finding their way back to each other. The memories of their first years together helped me reminisce on the beginning of my own marriage and stirred happy thoughts. This book is full of warm fuzzies as well as some of the most difficult situations. By the end I was in tears. This is one romance packed full of emotion and I would recommend not to miss this one!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House | Dial Press Trade Paperback for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.