Kennedy Ryan’s 2022 romance novel, Before I Let Go, is coming to the small screen. Variety reported that the author signed a first-look deal with Universal Studio Group to develop and produce several of her best-selling novels across platforms, with Yasmen and Josiah Wade’s story first.

I read Before I Let Go in 2025 after it was highly recommended. And the Wades took me on a roller coaster of emotions.

A second-chance romance that goes deep

As the series is already in development at Peacock, I have one request as a reader: please keep it raw.

Before I Let Go isn’t just a typical second-chance romance. It explores grief, healing, therapy, mental health, and the “for better or worse” side of marriage that drew me into a binge-read. Yasmen and Josiah are divorced, but from the first two chapters, it’s clear neither wanted to be. They’re connected not only through their children — a teenage daughter, Deja, who resents her mom after the split, and her smart little brother Kassim, who wants the family back together — but also as co-owners of a restaurant, Grits.

The book begins about two years after their divorce, with everyone still adjusting to their new normal. They can’t just drop the kids off at each other’s house. As co-owners, they must handle hands-on tasks and business decisions together.

This means they still have to be around each other beyond the children, which leads to rekindling. Although their journey back isn’t as simple as it sounds, the novel highlights how confronting pain can be freeing.

What I loved about Kennedy Ryan’s Before I Let Go

Sometimes when books switch points of view, something gets lost, or one character’s emotions aren’t as deeply explained. That doesn’t happen here. Both Yasmen and Josiah are hurt by how things ended. No matter how hard Josiah tried to convince himself that his new girlfriend was his future, readers could see that Yasmen was his one and only.

I also love how each character was written, from Yasmen to her friends Hendrix and Soledad (who have their own problems and books in the Skyland series), the children, and especially Josiah. Although he annoyed me at first by pushing hard against being with Yasmen again, I appreciate how Ryan created a male character who eventually let his guard down and allowed himself to really feel.

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