‘Too Late’ a quick read with a twisted love triangle

Happy New Year dear readers! In 2023 my mom, Jacquie, read more than 40 books to review for our readers and I am most appreciative.

I read more than 20 myself but only got to review a handful.

Looking back, my favorite books were “Pretty Little Wife,” by Darby Kane; “Ms. Demeanor” by Elinor Lipman and “Simply Lies,” by David Baldacci. All provided just enough mystery that as of today, I remember all three distinctly!

My mom’s favorites were “All That is Mine I Carry With Me” by William Landry, “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Neapolitan, and “Someone Else’s Shoes” by Jojo Moyes. Next week she’ll be back with another good one to start the year off, with “Frozen River,” a great historical fiction novel that she thoroughly enjoyed.

The reviews of these can be found on timesleader.com/features. Enjoy!

• https://www.timesleader.com/features/1611500/ms-demeanor-a-fun-funny-read’

• https://www.timesleader.com/features/lifestyle/1608993/baldaccis-simply-lies-a-page-turner

• https://www.timesleader.com/features/lifestyle/1606894/he-had-it-coming-but-who-did-it

• https://www.timesleader.com/features/lifestyle/1604198/heartwarming-and-heartbreaking

• https://www.timesleader.com/features/life/1603420/when-does-loyalty-reach-its-limits

Now, here is my first review of the new year: “Too Late” by Colleen Hoover

“Love is not found. Love finds. Love finds you in the forgiveness at the tail end of a fight. Love finds you in the empathy you feel for someone else. Love finds you in the embrace that follows a tragedy. Love finds you in the celebration after the conquering of an illness. Love finds you in the devastation after the surrender to an illness. Love finds you in the tragedies.” Carter/Luke, “Too Late.”

Colleen Hoover’s “Too Late” is a detour from her normal fiction we all know and love like, “Verity” that both my mom and I reviewed earlier this year. This book was written and rewritten based on help from her editors and her fans over time. The end result is a faced paced read with a lot of bases to cover.

I picked it because it was on the New York Times Best Seller List of 2023. Storyline is pretty straight forward until it isn’t. You have three characters telling the story from their point of view. Sloane is a struggling college girl, taking care of her special needs brother. She innocently starts dating Asa, a campus bad boy and depends on him economically for herself and her brother’s care.

Asa, said bad boy, is a huge campus King Pin selling all kinds of high-end drugs. He grew up in a negative, loveless environment and often repeats and believes some of the terrible things his father said and did. The drug money affords him his own house, cars and random drug associates to hang around with. He is abusive to Sloane on multiple levels.

Carter is a DEA officer that has been assigned to take down Asa and the drug ring on campus. He is portrayed as being a sweet, “normal” young man. He becomes part of the story as an undercover agent acting as a translator in Asa’s drug ring. As the story goes on, you can probably guess that a twisted love triangle starts to form very quickly with Sloane in the middle. Some might say the triangle occurred too unbelievably quickly. Carter and Sloane become smitten upon a first meeting. You be the judge.

I don’t want to give away the story in this review. It’s a fast and interesting read but leaves you with a lot of questions. It touches on multiple issues like domestic abuse, rape, mental health, drug abuse and more

I wanted to know much more background information on the three main characters. I felt sympathy but also angered with each one. With Sloane, do you feel sorry for her or blame her for putting herself in that position? Is she the victim, or is she just playing a part with a means to an end? Or both?

With Asa, there are clear indications of childhood neglect and possible mental health issues that have gone undetected and untreated. Does that make you feel sorry for him or not? You can tell a lot of his words and actions come clearly from what he learned from his father.

With Carter, you lead yourself to interesting questions like how he became enthralled with Sloane so quickly after their first meeting of just a few minutes. Also, you can’t help but think he managed the situation unprofessionally and put a lot of folks’ safety in jeopardy. Also, with extraordinarily little notice, he rattled off the quote at the beginning of this review, seemingly unlikely for the situation he was in. There are plenty of expletives — just a heads up — but I needed a quick read over the holiday break and this certainly filled the bill.

***

Times Leader Media Group Publisher Kerry Miscavage and her mother, Jacquie O’Neil, contribute to this column.