I try always give spoiler-free reviews but unfortunately with Ellipsis by Kristy McGinnis, it will venture into spoiler territory. I was really torn with this story because it is broken in two halves and those two halves have different writing styles. The first half has a major problem with telling instead of showing with is happening, what the characters are feeling, it feels more like a journal entry than a novel. It made it hard to connect with Nell and her boyfriend Narek. I was not emotionally invested with these two characters the way I should have been for the first portion of the story while they experience love, heartache that most relationships do during their years together. This portion of the story felt rushed like McGinnis was trying to get to the second part of the story which is the important part. I understand you need to set up backstory to the characters before the major even in their lives happens but you have to do it in a way that makes the reader care for the characters who are effected by those events. This is where it missed the mark for me. Now that is my main issue with this story, lets get into what it did right.
The first part eventually introduces us to Nell's and Narek's son Charlie, who we get to watch grow up with Nell and form the bound that a mother has with her child. Narek is not really in the story he is clearly an afterthought and just in this story for the purposes of being the father. I really believe this story would have been better if the author had just started the story with Nell and Charlie, she didn't need to go into the whole Narek history. Its not necessary, lots of fathers are not in the picture, it happens. Moving on⦠Nell and Charlie's interactions and emotional investment was there, because for the first time in this story McGinnis showed the reader everything instead of telling like prior. I could see and feel the love between this mother and her son. I could tell he was her world and Charlie adored his mother. That bond was clear on every page, which is what made the second part of this story the most heartbreaking tear-jerking part. If McGinnis did not take the time and patience to build that relationship on paper we would not have had that pay off with the emotions that are felt when the event happens and then after with the giant gapping hole that is left in Nell's life. But it is not all heartache and sadness there is survival and healing at the end. This story has taken a very real-life situation and made it about the parent's survival and how they continue when their worst nightmare happens.
Ellipsis by Kristy McGinnis is a shellshock to the system that will leave you at peace in the end.

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