Wonder by R. J. Palacio is a novel about August Pullman, a ten-year-old boy with a facial difference who goes to school for the first time in fifth grade. For readers who want the plot, the narrators and the book's lesson on kindness.
Reminders of Him
2022 · 335 pages · Summary updated 24 October 2026
Reminders of Him is Colleen Hoover's novel about Kenna Rowan, a young mother released from prison after the crash that killed her boyfriend, who comes home to meet the daughter she has never known. For readers who want a romance about grief, guilt and forgiveness.
The gist
Kenna Rowan leaves prison after five years for the crash that killed her boyfriend, Scotty Landry. She gave birth in prison, and her daughter, Diem, now four, lives with Scotty's parents, Grace and Patrick. They want nothing to do with Kenna. Broke and alone, she meets Ledger Ward, a bar owner who turns out to be Scotty's best friend and a second father to Diem. Ledger is torn between loyalty to the Landrys and his growing love for Kenna. Through Kenna's letters to Scotty, the reader learns what happened that night. Hoover's question is whether a person who caused a death can still earn a place in the lives of those she hurt.
Key ideas
- 01
Blame can be a way of holding on to the dead
Grace and Patrick Landry cannot forgive Kenna, and their anger gives their grief a clear target. Hoover shows that letting go of blame would feel to them like letting go of Scotty. The example is their refusal to let Kenna near Diem, even though Diem asks about her mother. The novel argues that grief which turns into blame can protect people from pain while it also hurts the child in the middle.
- 02
Kenna punishes herself more than anyone else does
Kenna pleads guilty, stays silent at sentencing and expects nothing after prison. Hoover makes her guilt total. Kenna does not argue with the Landrys' version of events, because part of her agrees with it. The letters to Scotty show the depth of this self-punishment. The book asks a real question: how long must a person pay for a terrible mistake, and who has the right to decide when it is enough?
- 03
Ledger is caught between two kinds of loyalty
Ledger owes the Landrys a lifetime of friendship, and he loves Diem like a daughter. He also falls in love with the woman they blame for Scotty's death. Hoover uses his narration to show both sides of the conflict from the inside. His secrecy causes harm, but it also opens the door to change. The example is his decision to help Kenna quietly while hiding it from the family.
- 04
Letters let a silent person tell her story
Kenna never told her side of the crash in court. Her notebook of letters to Scotty is the only place she says what happened and how she feels. Hoover uses the letters to hold back the key facts until late in the book. The structure makes a point: people judged Kenna on a record that left out her voice, and the truth changes how they see her.
- 05
Small kindness rebuilds a life after prison
Kenna returns with no money, no car and a record that closes most doors. What helps her is small: a landlady who gives her a kitten, a young neighbor who wants to be friends, a grocery coworker who treats her as a person. Hoover shows how hard reentry is and how much ordinary decency matters to someone the world has written off.
- 06
Kenna believed Scotty was already dead
After the crash, Kenna could not find a pulse and thought Scotty had died. In shock and without a phone, she went for help and ended up at home. Scotty was in fact alive for hours. The Landrys believed she abandoned him. The truth does not erase her guilt, but it changes its nature: it was a terrible mistake made in shock, not a choice to let him die.
- 07
Forgiveness comes from hearing the whole story
Grace changes her mind only after Ledger gives her Kenna's letters and she reads the account of the crash. Hoover's argument is that forgiveness is a choice people can make once they understand what really happened. Grace decides Scotty would have wanted Diem to know her mother. The family does not forget the loss, but it makes room for Kenna, and Diem gains a parent.
Full summary
A mother who has never held her child
Reminders of Him is a romance novel by Colleen Hoover, published in 2022. It is one of her most popular books, and a film version came out in 2026. Like many of her novels, it mixes a love story with heavy themes. Here the themes are grief, guilt, addiction and the question of whether some mistakes can be forgiven.
The story alternates between two first-person narrators: Kenna Rowan and Ledger Ward. A third voice runs through the book as well: the letters Kenna writes to her dead boyfriend in a notebook. These letters slowly tell the story of the night that changed her life.
Kenna comes home
Kenna is 26. She has served five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. Five years earlier, she crashed a car while she and her boyfriend, Scotty Landry, were both intoxicated. Scotty died. Kenna pleaded guilty and said almost nothing in her own defense.
While in prison, Kenna learned she was pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter, Diem, and saw her only briefly as a newborn before the baby went to live with Scotty's parents, Grace and Patrick Landry. Diem is now four years old, and she knows almost nothing about her mother.
Kenna returns to the town where the crash happened with almost no money, no car and no friends. She rents a small apartment in a run-down complex. Her landlady, Ruth, pushes a kitten on her, and Kenna, who has nothing else, keeps it. A young neighbor named Lady Diana befriends her. Finding work is hard for a woman with a prison record. She finally gets a low-paid job at a grocery store, where a coworker named Amy treats her with kindness.
Kenna's goal is simple and nearly impossible: she wants to meet her daughter. She tries to approach the Landrys, but they still blame her for their son's death. They see her as the woman who left Scotty to die. They refuse to let her near Diem.
Ledger Ward
On one of her first nights in town, Kenna walks into a bar that used to be a bookstore she loved. The owner is friendly. They talk, and the attraction is mutual. He is Ledger Ward.
Ledger is a former professional football player who played briefly in the NFL, came home and turned the old bookstore into his bar. He was Scotty's best friend from childhood. He lives across the street from the Landrys and is deeply involved in Diem's life. Diem treats him like a parent. He drives her to activities, plays with her and helps Grace and Patrick, who are getting older and are still raw with grief.
When Ledger realizes who Kenna is, he is angry. He tells her to stay away from the family. He believes, like the Landrys, that Kenna's choices that night cost his best friend his life. He also feels responsible for protecting Diem and her grandparents.
But Ledger keeps seeing Kenna, and he starts to doubt his own judgment. She is not the careless person he imagined. She is lonely, careful and full of remorse. Ledger begins to help her quietly. At the same time, he hides the relationship from the Landrys, because he knows they would see it as betrayal. He was supposed to marry a woman named Leah, but they split because she did not see Diem as part of his family the way he did. Ledger has already lost one relationship over this child, and he knows he could lose more.
The romance grows in secret. Ledger is caught between two kinds of love: love for the family he has helped hold together, and love for the woman they blame. He also starts to see the cost of the Landrys' decision for Diem, who is growing up without any knowledge of her mother.
Letters to Scotty
All through her time in prison, Kenna wrote letters to Scotty. She keeps writing them after her release. In them she talks to him as if he could hear her. She tells him about Diem, about her loneliness, about the kitten, about Ledger. She also returns again and again to the night of the crash.
The letters serve two purposes in the novel. They let the reader see Kenna's grief in her own words, without the defenses she shows other people. They also hold back the full story of that night. The Landrys and Ledger know only the version in the police reports and the court record. Kenna has never told her side. For most of the book, the reader does not know it either.
This structure is the engine of the plot. The question is not only whether Kenna will get to meet Diem. It is also whether the people who judged her will ever hear the truth, and whether the truth will change anything.
Characters
- Kenna Rowan: the main narrator. A young woman who had a hard childhood and little family support. She carries total guilt for Scotty's death and expects nothing from anyone.
- Ledger Ward: the second narrator. A bar owner and former football player. Loyal, protective and torn between his loyalty to the Landrys and his feelings for Kenna.
- Scotty Landry: Kenna's boyfriend, who died in the crash. He appears only in memories and in Kenna's letters. He was funny and loving.
- Diem: Kenna and Scotty's daughter, raised by her grandparents. Bright and lively, she adores Ledger.
- Grace and Patrick Landry: Scotty's parents. Their grief has hardened into fear that Kenna will take Diem away or harm her.
- Ruth, Lady Diana and Amy: the few people who show Kenna simple kindness when she first returns.
Themes
Grief and blame. The Landrys lost their only son. Their anger at Kenna gives their grief a target. Hoover shows that blame can be a way to hold on to the dead, and that letting go of blame can feel like letting go of the person.
Guilt and self-punishment. Kenna does not defend herself. She believes she deserves her punishment, and in part she does. The novel asks how long someone has to pay, and who has the right to decide when the debt is paid.
Forgiveness. Forgiveness in the book is not a feeling that arrives on its own. It is a choice that people make when they hear the whole story. Hoover treats it as hard and costly for both sides.
Motherhood. Kenna is a mother who has never held her child for more than a moment. Grace is a grandmother raising a daughter in her son's place. Both love Diem, and the conflict between them is a conflict between two kinds of mothering.
Second chances after prison. The book shows how hard it is to rebuild a life with a record: no job, no housing, no trust. Small kindnesses from strangers matter more than any grand gesture.
Spoilers: the truth about the crash
This section reveals the twist about the night of the crash.
Kenna's letters, and her conversations with Ledger, finally reveal what happened. After the car flipped, Kenna got out. She checked on Scotty and could not find a pulse. She believed he was dead. Injured, in shock and unable to find a phone, she set off on foot toward the highway to find help. No one stopped for her. Disoriented, with a head wound, she ended up at home and passed out.
The worst fact came later. Scotty had not died at once. He was alive for about six hours after the crash. If Kenna had found help, he might have lived. The Landrys believe she abandoned their son and let him die. Kenna has never argued with that, because she agrees that she failed him. She pleaded guilty partly to spare his family a trial and partly because she felt she deserved whatever came.
This is why the letters matter. They show that Kenna did not leave Scotty out of indifference. She thought he was already gone, and she has punished herself for the mistake ever since.
Spoilers: the ending
This section reveals the ending.
The Landrys discover that Ledger has been seeing Kenna. Patrick sees Ledger's truck outside Kenna's apartment and punches him. The family feels betrayed and forces Ledger to choose between them and her. Kenna decides that she is causing too much pain and prepares to leave town for good.
Ledger prints Kenna's letter about the night of the crash and gives it to the Landrys. Grace reads it, and it changes her view. She understands that Kenna believed Scotty was dead and that she has been punishing herself for years. Grace decides that Scotty would have wanted his daughter to know her mother.
Grace invites Kenna to the house, and Kenna finally meets Diem. The family begins to rebuild with Kenna as part of it. In the epilogue, set a few years later, Diem is seven. Kenna and Ledger are together, and Diem moves easily between their home and the Landrys'. Kenna and Ledger have a son of their own, whom they name Scotty.
What the critics say
Many readers and reviewers praise the novel's portrait of grief and its gentler tone compared with some of Hoover's earlier books. Others find the romance between Kenna and Ledger moves too fast, and some feel the ending forgives a fatal crash too easily by shifting focus to a misunderstanding about that night.
Who should read it
Read it if you want an emotional romance about grief, guilt and second chances, told through two narrators and a set of letters. It deals with a fatal drunk-driving crash, prison and the loss of a child to custody, and it contains sex scenes, so it suits adult readers.
Do this week
Flashcards
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Quiz
Question 1 of 5
Why has Kenna never raised her daughter Diem?
Questions this book answers
What is Reminders of Him about?
- Reminders of Him is a 2022 romance novel by Colleen Hoover. Kenna Rowan leaves prison after five years for the crash that killed her boyfriend, Scotty. She returns home to meet their four-year-old daughter, Diem, who lives with Scotty's grieving parents. They refuse to let her near the child. Kenna falls for Ledger Ward, a bar owner who was Scotty's best friend and helps raise Diem.
How does Reminders of Him end?
The Landrys learn about Ledger and Kenna and feel betrayed, and Kenna prepares to leave town. Ledger gives Grace Kenna's letters about the crash. Grace learns that Kenna thought Scotty was already dead when she went for help. She forgives Kenna and lets her meet Diem. In the epilogue, Kenna and Ledger are together, stay close to Diem, and have a son they name Scotty.
Who is Ledger in Reminders of Him?
- Ledger Ward is the second narrator. He is a former professional football player who owns a bar in town. He was Scotty Landry's best friend, lives across the street from Scotty's parents, and acts as a second father to Diem. He falls in love with Kenna and must choose between that love and his loyalty to the Landrys.
What happened to Scotty in Reminders of Him?
- Scotty died after Kenna crashed the car while they were both intoxicated. Kenna pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. Scotty's parents believe she left him to die. Kenna never told her side in court, and the full story of that night comes out slowly in her letters to him.
What is the theme of Reminders of Him?
- The main themes are grief, guilt and forgiveness. Hoover asks whether a person who caused a death can earn a place in the lives of the people she hurt. The book also explores how grief turns into blame, how hard it is to rebuild a life after prison, and two kinds of motherhood: Kenna's and Grace's.
Is Reminders of Him a sad book?
- Yes, in large part. It deals with the death of a young man, a mother separated from her child and years of guilt. It is also a romance with a hopeful ending, and it has lighter moments with Kenna's kitten, her neighbor and Diem. Most readers describe it as emotional rather than dark.
Related books
Ugly Love is Colleen Hoover's romance about Tate Collins, a nursing student who agrees to a no-strings affair with a guarded airline pilot, Miles Archer, whose past is a closed door. For readers who want a steamy, emotional love story with a heartbreaking backstory.
Zora Neale Hurston's novel about Janie Crawford, a Black woman in early 1900s Florida who moves through three marriages in search of real love and her own voice. For readers who want the plot, the themes and the meaning of the title.
The Wife Upstairs is Rachel Hawkins's 2021 thriller that retells Jane Eyre in a wealthy Alabama suburb, where a broke dog walker falls for a widower whose wife vanished on a lake. For readers who like twisty domestic suspense.
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