Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines

The Field Party, Book 1

Synopsis: To everyone who knows him, West Ashby has always been that guy: the cocky, popular, way-too-handsome-for-his-own-good football god who led Lawton High to the state championships. But while West may be Big Man on Campus on the outside, on the inside he’s battling the grief that comes with watching his father slowly die of cancer.

Two years ago, Maggie Carleton’s life fell apart when her father murdered her mother. And after she told the police what happened, she stopped speaking and hasn’t spoken since. Even the move to Lawton, Alabama, couldn’t draw Maggie back out. So she stayed quiet, keeping her sorrow and her fractured heart hidden away.

As West’s pain becomes too much to handle, he knows he needs to talk to someone about his father—so in the dark shadows of a post-game party, he opens up to the one girl who he knows won’t tell anyone else.

West expected that talking about his dad would bring some relief, or at least a flood of emotions he couldn’t control. But he never expected the quiet new girl to reply, to reveal a pain even deeper than his own—or for them to form a connection so strong that he couldn’t ever let her go…

Review: I had read the second volume some time ago, but as I really had a good time with the story, I went back and started with pleasure the first part of the saga.

We thus discover Maggie, a young girl who went through terrible ordeals and who has since become mute. She can no longer speak, she doesn’t want to hear herself, she wants to protect herself and this is the only way she has found. Her life will be turned upside down when she goes to live with her aunt and uncle and discovers West. She sees demons in the boy that she recognizes and yet no one seems to see that something is going on with him. She would like to help him, to understand what’s going on, but that would mean being a burden to her cousin and she wants to be left alone and not to be bothered anyone.

I had a really good time with this novel, but damn, that book was just as intense and sad. Really, really sad. Our two heroes are going to have to try to be there for each other to get through the trials of their lives, and to evolve. It was a very touching book and I have to admit that I’m very curious to discover the story of all the other characters.