Hi friends, happy Monday, I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m going to be posting my review of Kasie West’s novel, By Your Side.

By Your Side by: Kasie West: When Autumn gets locked in a library over the long weekend, she soon realizes she’s not alone; Dax, the school bad boy, is also with her. Autumn is determined her friends will realize she’s missing and come for her, only they don’t. Unaware of what’s happening outside their library bubble, the two over the course of the weekend get to know each other. What started out as a typical teen romance, turned into a story about making choices for yourself and putting yourself first. This novel still had the fluffiness of a teen romance and it was entertaining; the author tried to bring in more serious topics such as anxiety and family issues, but it felt like West just scratched the surface with them, giving them the most basic, stereotypical attributes. The first half of this novel dragged on; we get it these two are stuck in a library for three days, but after a hundred pages or so it felt repetitive. The reader was glad the whole novel didn’t take place there and that the second half of the novel was paced quicker. The overall plot was entertaining; even though the reader could figure out how it was going to end, there were still moments throughout that surprised the reader. The secondary characters were so shallow and they had no depth to them at all. All of Autumn’s friends felt very passive aggressive with her and it made them very unlikeable. Her parents and brother were very supportive and the reader enjoyed reading about them, but wished they got to know them better. As for the main characters, the characterization we get felt really superficial; we didn’t really learn much about them as characters but just the very basic things. As the novel continued we still didn’t really get more than Autumn has anxiety and Dax has family issues and again the reader wishes we got to dive a little deeper. Overall, this was still a compelling read and for the most part the reader enjoyed this, it just didn’t dig deep enough into the characters or their backstories but focused too much on the romance.