Danielle (Love at First Page)'s Reviews > There Will Come a Time

A special thanks to the girls over @ On the Same Page ARC Tours for lending me an ARC copy!

I don't want to be a pebble turning into sand, rubbed free of Grace. I want to keep her in my heart and hold her deep, where the waters cannot touch.

Don't let the page count fool you; this little book not only packs an emotional punch but paints a realistic and moving portrait of grief. Mark lost his twin sister, Grace, in a car accident, and he's feeling the full range of emotions: loss, anger, sadness, and survivor's guilt. He and his sister were very close, best friends with that connection only twins seem to understand. Without Grace, he's struggling to make sense of his life, no longer sure he's even a whole person anymore. It's only when Hanna, his and his sister's best friend and neighbor, proposes they fulfill Grace's "Top Five Things To Do This Year" list that Mark begins to work through his grief.

What is the right way to cope with loss and respond to grief? Ever since the accident, Mark has pushed away the people he cares about the most because he doesn't think they can understand what he's going through. His loss somehow feels greater than theirs because Grace was his twin. And so the way other people deal with the heartbreak of losing her only angers him and causes him to lash out at them. He has a difficult time talking about Grace, whereas everyone else - Hanna, his father and stepmom, even the Twinless Twins support group he joins - wants him to share and open up. It takes times and a few screw-ups for Mark to realize that he doesn't have a monopoly on grief; that everyone will miss Grace in their own way. It's a touching journey, and I'm glad that I felt not only overwhelming sadness for him, but ultimately hope as well.

Without a doubt, the best aspect of There Will Come a Time is the relationships in Mark's life. He and his dad are not in the best place at the start of the book. Neither are sure how to talk to the other, especially because Mark has such a difficult time reconciling the family he has now to the family he had before Grace died. Her empty chair at the kitchen table haunts him. By doing the top five list and by going to the support group, remembering Grace out loud becomes easier, and his relationship with his dad finally starts to soften.

The top five list - learn to surf, go bungee jumping, perform spoken word at a club, climb a mountain and watch the sunset, and run a 5K - of course brings him inexorably closer to Hanna. Growing up, it wasn't that Hanna was Grace's best friend; the three of them formed a tight unit. Mark has almost always had deeper feelings for her, but he's been afraid to act on them, especially now. He's unsure if a romantic relationship would damage their friendship, and he doesn't even think he deserves a happiness that Grace is now denied. I loved the romance in this book: it's subtle, quiet, and steady, and a perfect example of best-friends-to-more. Hanna is his rock, refusing to give up on him, and he obviously cares deeply for her. Their relationship is the soothing touch this book needs, and I like that they get closer by doing things that are honoring Grace.

Of course, the most important relationship is the one between Mark and his sister. Despite her passing, it takes on a journey of its own, evolving and strengthening over the course of the book. When Mark reads Grace's journal, it's a bit of a shock when he discovers that not all of her thoughts of the two of them are so favorable. She expressed her wish to be her own person, to not always be considered "Grace and Mark" but just "Grace". Yet it's so clear how much she looked up to Mark and that they were truly best friends. I think more than anything this opens Mark's eyes to the realization that he doesn't want the Grace in his memory to be perfect. He wants to remember her, flaws and all.

The writing is just what it needs to be: raw, sparse, and at times beautifully poetic. I'm a fan of male point-of-views, and Mark's voice was very easy to digest. His pain and vulnerability are tangible things, yet I'm thankful Mark never lets himself completely drown. He is also Filipino, but the emphasis placed on that detail felt shallow; I never got a greater sense of his ethnicity. Other than his relationships, one thing that helps Mark deal with grief is music. He's a bass player, and the passages describing when he's lost in his music are some of my favorite.

Yes, There Will Come a Time is a story about loss and grief, but it's also about moving on and living the kind of life that means something. Mark will always miss the person who has been his other half, but he's his own person as well. He realizes that he needs to reach for that life Grace would want him to have.

This review can also be found at Love at First Page.