“When It’s Over” by Jasmine Carolina had a really cool “The Last Five Years” vibe! (If you don’t know, that’s a musical where the two MCs experience the show in reverse order – for the female lead, it’s starts “today” and works backwards in time and for the male lead, it starts 5 years ago and works towards today).

The book is a dual POV that goes back and forth between the female MC – Lex – from “today” and the Lex from when she first met her husband and through their marriage together. Lex is a song-writer who realizes she’s been living a life according to who her husband, Joshua, wants her to be, and not who she is, or who she wants to become. She decides she’s ready for a new life – the one she chooses.

The way it’s written builds this interesting duality where you see Lex fall in love with Joshua, and slowly start to lose herself, while also seeing the moment she realizes, takes back her power, and starts living for herself again. As someone who makes a living helping women see themselves for the beautiful, worthy human being they are, this hit home. (Side note, as the manager of a boudoir portrait studio, I LOVED seeing this in a book). Strong women taking back their lives, and doing it with grace, respect and love is a beautiful thing to see.

As I was reading, I wanted the pace to go faster. I felt myself wanting Lex to accomplish more. Then it hit me – I was expecting more of her than she was ready for, which was the WHOLE point of the book. I don’t know if that was Jasmine’s intention in her writing, but holy crap, it was wildly impressive.

TLDR: “And truth be told, I have a lot of healing to do before I can even consider being friends with him, or being something more with anyone else.” I feel like “When It’s Over” is one of those books every woman going through a divorce should read to remind herself that she can be strong and independent and find herself again. Lex’s story of doing the same is freeing and beautiful. The “The Last Five Years” vibe gave it a really fun duality where you get to read the story from two points of view that become one and build a story for each other.