Review: Before That Night by Lauren Barnholdt

Before That Night (prequel to One Night That Changes Everything)

By: Lauren Barnholdt

Publisher: NA

Release Date: December 19, 2010

Genre/Age: YA Contemporary

Pages: 42 (Novella)

Source: Lauren’s website

Prequel novella to ‘One Night That Changes Everything.’ Find out what happened “before that night”.

I know, it's a lame description, right? But that’s really exactly what this story is. We get to read about what happened from the moment Eliza and Cooper started talking at the paintball arcade where Eliza works, right up until she goes through his stuff and finds the incriminating list from the 318’s, thus ending their relationship and kicking off the events of One Night That Changes Everything.

Before That Night is a wonderful, fun revisit to the characters and story from One Night. It’s super-short (it feels super-short, at least), clocking in at only 42 pages, and I actually would have liked to see a little more of the evolution of Eliza and Cooper’s relationship. We get to see some of it, sure, but it would have been nice to have more moments of just the two of them getting to know each other and building the romance (and some more steamy scenes would have been okay too :D).

Clarice and Marissa make appearances as their usual hilarious selves, and Cooper gets to be sweet and lovely, as opposed to the slightly more villainous role he’s given in One Night. Eliza continues to be a fantastic narrator and I was glad for this prequel even just to get to hear her thoughts some more.

I would highly recommend reading Before That Night after One Night That Changes Everything, because it will take away some of the intrigue if you read them the other way around. But if you enjoyed One Night, I would definitely recommend reading this prequel.

The lovely Lauren is making this novella available for free on her website (although you can also buy it from Amazon if you so desire), and it can be found here.

You can also read my review of One Night That Changes Everything.