So Much More by Kim Holden

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Love is strange. It comes out of nowhere. There’s no logic to it. It’s not methodical. It’s not scientific. It’s pure emotion and passion. And emotion and passion can be dangerous because they fuel love…and hate.

I’m now a reluctant connoisseur of both—an expert through immersion. I know them intimately.

When I fell in love with Miranda, it was swift and blind. She was the person I’d elevated to mythical status in my head, in my dreams.

Here’s the thing about dreams, they’re smoke.

They’re spun as thoughts until they become something we think we want. Something we think we need.

That was Miranda. She was smoke.

I thought I wanted her. I thought I needed her.

Over time reality crept in and slowly dissected and disemboweled my dreams like a predator, leaving behind a rotting carcass.

Reality can be a fierce bitch.

So can Miranda.

And I can be a fool…

who believes in dreams.

And people.

And love.

*****5 Exceptional Stars*****

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Sometimes you read books. Sometimes you experience them, and every unforgettable moment they give you. Sometimes you feel them with every ounce of feeling and emotion you have. Sometimes you even read a book so extraordinary that it swallows up your body, and your mind, and your very soul for every single word within its pages. And sometimes, if you’re lucky enough, you find a book that gives you all of that and more.

Books like that is why I am a reader. I live for books like that. I love books like that and what they make me think and feel and experience and wonder. When I come across them, it makes me want to shout that books praises from the proverbial rooftop…

So get ready for some shouting, because So Much More by Kim Holden was that kind of book.

So Much More was that kind of book because honestly it was so much more than a book. It was an experience, it was a journey, and it was a breathtakingly emotional story unlike any other I’ve read. It was so many unforgettable and raw and heart squeezing moment woven together perfectly through the eyes of 3 very distinctive characters.

It was real. It was life. It was love. It was also utter heartbreak and pain. Yet at the same time, it was also healing in so many ways.

It was everything.

I feel like this story is so hard to accurately describe because it was so many things, and it encompassed so many different stories with Miranda, Seamus, and Faith. Kim Holden seamlessly weaves together their stories in So Much More, and she connects them all in ways that you will be blown away by. Ways that will make you feel every ounce of what these characters do. Ways that will hurt your heart and shatter it into a million pieces, yet at the same time, ways that will bring you back together again and make it right. Experiencing these characters’ interwoven stories in So Much More is something I know I will never forget experiencing.

Even though I find it so hard to tell you what this book is about (since it’s about so much), and why you should read it (which you obviously should), I’m going to try to find a way to tell you what this book will give you…but really you should just read it, because my words do not do this book the immense amount of justice it deserves.

So Much More is a story of love. A father’s undying love for his children. One girl’s journey to seek the love she’s always been missing. One woman’s bumpy as hell path to love that is certainly unorthodox, yet oddly fitting for her. It’s a story of the love and compassion you can share for others, the love you can feel for yourself, and the extraordinary kind of love you can feel for the right person if you actually let yourself feel it.

So Much More is a story of hate. Unbridled, feel it in your bones, hate that consumes you with everything it has. It’s about how that hate changes you, how it alters your mind and how it puts you on paths you never wanted to be on. It’s about how that hate can devour you if you let it, and how that hate can bring you to be a person you never wanted to be.

So Much More is also a story of resiliency. Of the heart, of the mind, and of the soul. It’s about what happens when you break, when things come your way that you don’t deserve and you experience the worst of the worst, yet you push through and fight with everything you have. That tenacious resiliency is everything, and reveals a vulnerability, honesty, and level of realness in these characters in the most extraordinary of ways. This book gives you that resiliency, and makes it tangible, it makes it real. Experiencing that resiliency from these characters will give you hope, it will give you love, and most of all, it will give you life.

So Much More is a story of Faith and Hope, and the life changing things that can happen when you have both of those things. It’s about what can happen when you open yourself up to the joy and light and happiness they can both bring you, and how that will change everything. (And yes those words are capitalized for a reason. Read this book and you’ll get that.)

This book is extraordinary. It’s unique and real. It’s wholly enrapturing and it’s raw and messy and it ain’t easy. It’s also one of the most honest portrayals of family and life and love that I have ever read, and it is a book I know I will never forget reading. This book consumed me. It took over my heart and my mind as I read it, and I couldn’t get enough. I needed more. Even when it hurt. Even when it made me shake my head. Even when it made me cry…I needed this book. I needed Seamus, I needed Faith, and as much as it kind of kills me to say this, I needed Miranda.

These characters in So Much More are unlike any other, and their wonderful distinctiveness sets them in a league of their own, yet at the same time they’re so beyond easy to relate to. Even Miranda. Kim Holden allows you to understand them all so fully, so authentically, and in such a way that you get them. I’ll repeat that. You get them in this book on every level possible. Even Miranda. You get them, you understand them, and you feel for them. Even Miranda. Even when you want to strangle them, or shake them, or even knock some sense or fire or something into them, you get them and you love them, you know them, and you understand them, and you sympathize and feel for them. Even Miranda.

So Much More gives you the unforgettable and so thoughtfully intertwined stories of Miranda, Seamus, and Faith, along with a slew of utterly fantastic supporting characters that I can’t get enough of.

Seamus is the epitome of a good father. He’s a man who would do anything for his kids. He’s also a man that is struggling something fierce, and So Much More presents him with even more struggles. And boy does he struggle, and boy does that break your heart, like a lot, but at the same time those struggles reveal all of Seamus. They reveal the good, what makes him so amazing and such a good father and person, and what makes him a person you want to root for. His resiliency and fight in this book, and really the amount of love he has, will have you in awe of him, and really you’ll just love him. All of him.

Faith is the dreamer. She’s an optimist, and she is the definition of what it means to be a good person, a caring person, both inside and out. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t struggled, because she has and in this book she faces so many of those struggles head on, yet she still does it with her good heart and her caring self. Faith is the kind of person I aspire to be. She feels with all she has, she fights just as hard, and in the end she tries, and she does it all with a genuine smile on her face. Reading and experiencing Faith’s character is like a warm hug that just never ends, one that gets better and better, and just feels right all the way through. I love her so damn much. So damn much.

Miranda is…complicated. To say the least. I’ll be honest with you and let you know that I spent much of this book hating her. I hated her thoughts, I hated her choices, and I hated and despised the things she was doing to those around her, along with herself. The more I read this book though, and the more I got in her character’s head, the more I found myself understanding her, and the more I felt bad for her. Yes, she mad horrible choices, did unforgiveable things, and she is definitely no ray of sunshine, yet I still understood where that came from, and why she did the things she did, and more than that, so did she. And she hated it just as much as I did. Her character is one of the most complex and emotion inducing ones I have ever read, and though she sure as hell wasn’t easy to love, like, or even tolerate, I got her. I understood her, and many times, I even felt for her. I got her on the realest and rawest of levels, and that is a true testament to how exceptionally Kim Holden crafted her character because she gave me all of that.

Kim Holden gives you each of these characters in ways you will never forget. She makes these characters real, and messy, and flawed, and that just makes them even more dynamic, even more distinctive, and even more unforgettable. She lets you see them at their highest, their lowest, and at every single point in between as they all journey together in this book, and that is just part of what makes this story the exceptional thing that it is.

I am completely in awe of how she wove together this story, these characters, their flaws, their realities, and everything they shared in So Much More. I honestly don’t have the right amount of words to tell you what it was like to truly experience this book and their story.

This book was so much more than a story. It’s so much more than a book. It’s so much more than just words on a paper.

It’s an experience, it’s a journey, it’s something I’ll never forget reading… and really, it’s everything rolled into one exceptional package.

So Much More is so much more, and Kim Holden’s exquisitely emotional writing made it all possible within the pages of this breathtaking book. What she gives you within the pages of this phenomenal book is a story of love, a story of hate, hurt, and pain, and a story of the tenacity and resiliency that can see you through even the darkest of days, and even the worst moments, if you only you let yourself feel it and embrace what it could give you.

I loved this book. I loved every moment, and feeling, and hurt, and hope, and experience it gave me with these characters. I could probably go on for thousands of more words, and I still wouldn’t even come close to telling you how much I loved this book, and how much you need to read it.

You need this book. You need its powerful emotions. You need its unforgettable moments. You need its incredible characters and everything they so honestly give you. You need its words, its feelings, and its messages. You need its love and its hurt and its life.

You need it all.

Even Miranda.

So please, I beg of you, read this book. Let it consume you, let it move you, and in the end, let it fulfill you in ways you never knew possible. Trust me. You need this book in your life. You need Seamus, you need Faith, and you even need Miranda.

I am telling you that this book will blow you away with everything it has, and honestly, it doesn’t get better than that.

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