All the Things We Lost

River Valley Lost & Found Series, Book 1

By: Kayla Tirrell

Narrated by: Katie Brown

Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

After her mother’s death, 18-year-old Katie finds herself in a town she never thought she'd see again. Lost in turmoil and sadness, a ray of hope shines brightly when she comes face to face with Julian for the first time in years.

However, he isn’t the same boy she left behind. Reserved and covered in bruises, everyone in River Valley avoids him. Rumors of his activities run rampant.

Despite his cold attitude toward her and her own sadness, Katie can’t keep her thoughts from straying to her childhood friend.

Julian is barely keeping it together. He’s the sole provider for his family after his dad leaves. His dreams to go to college are ruined. Even his relationship with his older brother leaves its mark.

But, Katie’s back in town and is stirring feelings in him he thought were lost forever.

Can they find hope and love in each other, or will the struggle to survive their desperate situations prove too much?

©2017 Kayla Tirrell (P)2018 Kayla Tirrell

Overcoming Obstacles

This is a clean coming of age YA novel of two teens, Katie and Julian, overcoming difficult losses and family problems.

Katie loses her mom from cancer and returns to her childhood home to live with her father where reconnects with her old friend Julian. We are able to see her grow as a character as she learns to cope with the loss of her mother, to forgive, trust, and open up to new love and friendship.
Like Katie, Julian is also dealing with some different but equally difficult harships in his family life. He is dealing with his father's abandonment of his family and an abusive older brother. Julian learns to stand up for himself, to trust and open up. He also learns that it is never to late to try to pursue his dreams.

Both main characters learn some important lessons in their lives and discover important things about themselves. I loved that we got to see them overcome their obstacles as they grew closer together in this sweet coming of age story. The author wraps things up nicely and we are able to take away some valuable lessons in addition to a nice love story.

The narrator did a great job differentiating and staying consistent with the characters and speed.
Overall, I enjoyed many aspects of this shorter YA story.

I received a review copy at my request and have voluntarily left this unbiased review.

Great Read

All The Things We Lost was a great read by Kayla Tirrell. Katie is 18 years old and just lost her mother. She returns to the town that she grew up in and never thought she would return to. She sees Julian again who was her childhood best friend, but he is much different now. I really loved Julian and Katie’s story and was rooting for them the whole time. I can’t wait to read more by Kayla Tirrell.

Lost with grief

A great story of young love and overcoming grief. The story will tug on your heart strings and leave you wanting to learn more. This is the first book in the series so you have the opportunity to hear more.

Love, Loss, & Rediscovering Yourself

This was a really great story about love and loss. Eighteen year old Katie just lost her mom to cancer and can’t seem to move on with her life. She moves back to her hometown, River Valley, with her estranged father to try fix their relationship. Julian’s father has abandoned him and his family and his older brother abuses him. Katie and Julian used to be best friends before her parents divorce and they have both changed since then. Both characters have so much growth throughout the story and it was an amazing journey for both of them to learn how to trust, let people in, stand up for themselves, forgiveness, and figuring out what they wanted in life. I loved that Kayla wrote these characters realistically, had both POVs, and ended the story with a HEA.
Katie did a really good job with this narration! She did different voices for each character and her male voices were done well. I felt that she really portrayed all of the emotions of the characters in her performance.
*I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

All the things we lost

This a great summer audio book to listen to and at the end you will be fully invested in this group of friends! It has HEA and no cliffhangers!

Heartfelt and sweet YA

This was a great story that was heartfelt and a perfect YA book. The author didn't disappoint, and the story kept me captivated. I was so happy when it came to audible. I was given this for an honest review, and. I can honestly say I loved this book and series!

Great story

Heartfelt story of loss, love, and navigating relationships as a young adult. Drama kept the story moving and the characters were likable. The performer did a good job with differentiating between characters.

All the Things We Lost

A perfect love story for the beginning of this series. It’s almost like a second chance story but not because they were just friends when they were younger. Julian and Katie are both struggling with different things but are able to work through some of them together. These two are so sweet together and look forward to more in this series, even though I listened to the second one out of order.

Second chances

This is a wonderful young love second chance story. So very well written and performed. The story doesn’t stagnate into their past. It keeps moving and you then rejoice at the acceptance of love on both of their parts.

Sweet YA romance

This is a story with a lot of emotion, angst and forgiveness. For this to be listed as a romance, I would have liked more romance. This is more about teenagers discovering themselves or at least at the beginning of discovery. I was expecting the book to end without Julian and Katie getting together but was pleasantly surprised when they got their moment. The narrator was pretty good too.