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.

I've long been a fan of Renee Carlino, from the moment I read my first book of hers, Swear On This Life. It was an easy five star read for me, and was only added to by further five star reads Before We Were Strangers, Sweet Thing and Wish you Were Here. I hit a bit of a snag by then reading two Carlino books that I didn't enjoy nearly as much, and I started to wonder if maybe my luck with the author had run out.

Carlino's writing is quite straightforward. It's not lyrical in the same way as I've seen from a lot of other authors I love. It's direct and often quite blunt, and I think that's partly why there are a couple of books from Carlino previously that I haven't loved. Looking at their publication dates, I think it's the earlier books that I haven't been able to connect with, because the direct writing didn't have the depth of feeling to really make the writing style work. In This Used To Be Us, the story was so full of emotion and feeling that the writing only highlighted its beauty.

I fell in love with the story so quickly. It very much reminded me of After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid, although it did have a number of differences; the main difference being the actual intentions of our estranged couple, Dani and Alex. There was a very delicate balancing act to make the characters just likeable enough for the reader to root for them, but also making the reader understand exactly how they would have come to resent each other. It's not easy to do, and I've read many books in the past that haven't been successful. Yet in this book, Carlino succeeded. It was easy to see exactly how Dani and Alex would have come to love each other, and also how they would have grown apart. Neither character is perfect and both have very real flaws, and I enjoyed getting to know the characters in all their messy glory.

This is a beautiful book about love, and about how it is honest and ugly and very special. This Use To Be Us is the end of the love story, the happy never after, and that can be very difficult to take in for the romantics among us. It's hard to accept that there isn't always a happy ending, and I did find this book painful to read at points for that reason. But it also packed a heck of an emotional punch. The regular switch between a young Dani and Alex and the couple in the midst of a separation made it even more real, and my connection with them only grew as the story went on.

I think it's hard to say that this is romance book, but it is definitely a love story. As the book went on, I laughed and I cried, and my heart shattered into hundreds of pieces over and over again. It's beautiful, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it.

Renée Carlino has always been one of auto buy author, so I was excited to be able read and e-arc of This Used to Be Us.

Dan and Alex after 20 years of marriage are getting divorced and with a lot of divorces it can getting messy. I honestly really disliked both of the main characters for more than 50% of the book. Dani more so than Alex. I'm glad they found their way back to each other but was disappointed with how their happiness was short lived The ending felt rushed and I really wish there was actually epilogue. I was left with just wanting a little more.
3.75 stars

This Used to Be Us is a heartbreaking novel. It is a beautifully written love story. This story follows Alex and Dani, a couple trying to navigate their way through a very tough divorce, while trying to keep things as normal as possible for their two children. As they navigate this new life, they rediscover their love story and realize it is not over. The author does a fantastic job really exploring the messiness of divorce…pain, sadness, anger and love. I found myself rooting for both main characters as they tried to find their way in what is their “new normal.” There was a gut-wrenching twist at the end which brought me to tears. I loved this book for its realness, its love story and was heartbroken at the conclusion for all of the characters. This was a 4.5 star read for me.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I have been a long time Renee Carlino fan, Before We Were Strangers is one of my all time favorite books. I was so excited to see she was publishing a new book, but sadly this one didn’t resonate with me as her previous work has.

Right from the start, I found both MC’s very unlikeable. And that didn’t change throughout the story. This story is about the demise of a married couples relationship and their impending divorce, so I can only assume this characterization was intentional. But hardly seeing any of their good times and why they loved each other in the first place was the downfall of the story and the characters.

Even though I didn’t like these characters, I liked their ending even less. The last few chapters are so rushed, came out of nowhere, and just didn’t feel like it fit.

I am terribly sad this book wasn’t for me, but I can see many people enjoying this particular journey. I’m still a huge Carlino fan and will always pick up anything she writes and recommend her books to everyone I know.

A full circle of love, revenge, remorse, regret, and love again stuffed with sweet memories… A poignant book of love and love and life that is both uplifting and sad. A beautifully written story…

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this ARC.

Renee’s writing and storytelling is unlike the typical authors I read. It’s deep and rooted in reality and practicality and highlights all the raw issues that are typically skimmed over for lack of fun or escapism some read for.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read.

I’ve never read a Renee Carlino book before, but I will definitely be reading more now! This book had a lot of conflict between the two main characters. Navigating parenthood and coexistence during a bitter divorce. It was interesting to read and learn about their relationship pre marriage, during marriage, and post divorce.

I was happy and entertained the first 90% of the book. When I got to about 80%, I decided to finish the rest of the book in that same sitting. I was not expecting the ending! I finished the book in tears, it’s not often books have me weeping!


Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the ARC.

Such a sad love story. I really enjoyed this book, there are a few things I would’ve changed but overall I really enjoyed it. I love Renee Carlino’s writing so much.