Before Dawn

By: Laura F. Murphy

Thank you to Laura F. Murphy for inviting me to read her book!

 Max is a feisty New Yorker who hasn’t had an easy life.  Adopted when she was a baby, Max grew up in a loving family, but no one looked like her.  When she started working in her brother’s car shop, she fell for Tommy, a man 14 years her senior.  She fell so in love with him, that she tried to make herself be what he wanted.  As she is figuring out herself and her life, she soon learns that her actions have consequences, and that family is everything.

Before Dawn is a strong 3.5 star book, rounded up to 4 stars.  The prologue starts off strong, leaving you wanting more.  Murphy has a strong sense of her characters, giving each of them a very distinctive voice.  Due to her ability, I absolutely hated Tommy.  I thought he was vile and disgusting.  Never mind the fact that he was cheating, the fact that he had the audacity to make comments about Max’s looks and her race was putrid.  Murphy also succeeded in creating a very strong sense of family with these characters, which was very heartwarming.  Where the book fell a little short for me was in Max’s character development, and in the editing.  Max grows throughout the book, there is no denying that.  But then towards the end, she says a few things, or has a few things, that don’t exactly match up with her growth.  One of the things that absolutely irked me was how many times the author wrote something to this effect: “I didn’t realize you loss a baby.”  In almost all instances, it should have been “lost.” It may seem small, but it really takes away from the flow of reading.  If that was fixed, this would easily be a 4 star book.  A must read!

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