Gut-wrenching and Healing: The Cabin by Jasinda Wilder

The Gist: A gut-wrenching, tear-jerker of a romance novel that transforms itself into a book of healing and convincing second-chance love–although its enjoyability is severely limited by the frustrating characterization of its Heroine.

Series: Standalone

Release Date: October 22, 2020

Format: Kindle Unlimited

Rating: 3.5-stars

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I knew that The Cabin was going to be a heart-wrenching read; the first sentence in the synopsis is literally, “One year ago, I buried my husband.” But I didn’t realize just how sad the story would be. It honestly felt like I, along with the Heroine, Nadia, was going through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

So, just as a blanket warning, The Cabin is the tear-jerker novel to end all romance books.

Unflinching Honest Representation of Grief

As I mentioned above, The Cabin gets pretty freaking sad because, for much of the book, Nadia is dealing with the grief of her husband dying from cancer. The author, Jasinda, executes the grief of a loved one in a unique way to second chance romances… the reader actually “meets” Nadia’s husband. In fact, in the first 30% of The Cabin, Nadia’s husband is a main character with a predominant perspective (the opening chapter is narrated from his POV). The narrative decision allowed the reader to get to know, fall in love with and actually grieve the loss of Nadia’s husband along with her.

It made the grief Nadia was experiencing much more understanding and even relatable. How many widower romances do people read and then get fed up with the reluctance to move on? In fact, I felt that way a bit with the Hero, Nathan, of the story because I never “met” his wife. When books are predominately titled romance, readers can be impatient with anything that slows the romance down. So, I liked how Jasinda made Nadia’s husband a real character rather than a plot device.

Nadia’s grief in The Cabin gets pretty dark and defines unhealthy grieving. Nadia and her husband were each other’s sole family (all of their parents died young or have dementia, and both are only children), and Nadia’s only real friend is going through a divorce. Hence, Nadia does not receive much emotional support. As a result, she develops terrible coping mechanisms (denial, working herself to death, dependency on alcohol), which builds up her grief to such a degree that she has a breakdown and spirals into suicidal ideation.

The first part of The Cabin is, therefore, pretty grim. The reader also reads the death of Nadia’s husband–from cancer–on-page at around 30%. It was so freaking sad. There were many tears.

The lack of professional help Nadia sought to deal with her grief was the only sticking point I had with her grief. Nadia is a registered nurse and is therefore familiar with death, grief, unhealthy coping, and treatments: therapy or grief counselling. Yet, there are no steps made by either Nadia or her best friend, even when Nadia admits that she’s suicidal, depressed, is about to have a mental breakdown and might need to be institutionalized.

Given that Nadia admitted to all these feelings, I found it incredibly unrealistic that her best friend let her just drive off to the cabin her husband left her (which he told her about one year after his death via letter). If she were my best friend, I would not have trusted her to care for herself.

Second Chance Romance

I loved how the romance was between two widows. It felt like they understood and respected each other and the place their spouses still had in their hearts/lives. So often in romances, when only one of the main characters is a widow, there’s that whole competing with a ghost vibe. I liked how that wasn’t a thing except for one scene, which made no sense and ventured into double-standard land. (Nadia vocally asked if she was better than Nathan’s wife at making breakfast, and obviously, he got pissed (but quickly forgave). If Nathan had done that, Nadia would’ve blanked him till the end of time. So that wasn’t cool, although it was quickly resolved.)

I also loved how convincing Jasinda was at showing how a person can have multiple “Ones” in their life. The myth that there’s only One person for everyone (a soulmate) makes sense when you meet the One, and they don’t die. Because, when you meet the One, they are the only One–you stop looking for others. But when you lose that One, new possibilities open up.

To be more clear, if you’re a fan of The Vampire Diaries, this example hits home the ‘Multiple Ones’ argument: If Stefan and Elena from The Vampire Diaries were end game (they’d get married and have kids, etc.), then Stefan would’ve NEVER given Caroline (one of Elena’s best friend’s) a second-look (or even a first). But, because Elena and Damon were end game, Stefan realized he and Caroline were meant to be because he was searching for his “new” One.

Too Many Pet Peeves

While I really appreciated the realistic depiction of grief (I also loved how romantic Nadia and her husband were–meant to be, comes to mind) and the hopeful yet realistic depiction of second-chance love, there were so many of my pet peeves in The Cabin that I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I would’ve liked.

First, I found the setup of Nathan and Nadia unrealistic (even for a romance novel) and a bit too perfect (the fact that Nathan and Nadia are even attracted to each other, for one and the fact that Nadia’s husband arranged for them to meet and get together beyond the grave).

Also, I was so frustrated that Nadia had so many issues with a loved one dying that her husband hid the fact that he had terminal cancer for 18 months. Her husband had to fight his cancer alone because it would’ve been too much for Nadia to deal with. If her husband knew this about her–and she admits to her husband while he’s still alive that it was the right thing to do (wtf)–why didn’t he encourage her to get therapy and reconcile this emotional trauma? The fact that her husband was dying (and was obviously scared of dying and really struggling with his prognosis) and couldn’t even seek comfort from his best friend and wife because he had to worry about her was horrible.

I also resented that Nadia strong-armed her husband into being cared for by her (a nurse) rather than hiring a nurse. They weren’t hurting for money, so she could’ve listened to her husband’s wishes and let him have the allusion of some privacy, but noooo. Once again, it’s all about letting Nadia do what she can to cope.

Finally, I didn’t like how the passage of time wasn’t noted while Nadia and Hero were in their cabins. They met/became friends a year after Nadia’s husband died, but I think they decided to date for the first time ~6 months after their meeting and became intimate even later. But it’s difficult to say, given there was no real notation of time passing. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter. But, I know for some readers, knowing when Nadia officially moved on from her husband can be a point of contention (a few reviewers thought she moved on exactly a year later and thought it was too soon).

In Conclusion

I really enjoyed the theme of exploring how to learn to love again after such an unimaginable tragedy. This past week, I’ve attempted to explore it from the loss of familial and romantic love. I think The Cabin demonstrates how real second-chance love can be while respecting the person who came before and died too soon. Just because the main characters in The Cabin moved on, it doesn’t mean they forgot their deceased spouses. The road to healing and learning to love again was really freaking beautiful.

However, as I mentioned in my pet peeves section, quite a few parts of The Cabin detracted from my reading enjoyment. Therefore, the rating of 3.5 stars reflects the book’s successes and its limitations in characterization (Nadia was incredibly frustrating).

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