Author: Emery Lord
Genre: YA Contemporary
Length: 384 Pages
Release: March 2015
My Rating: 5/5 Stars
Review
This book was a very pleasant surprise. It was much deeper than I was anticipating and I loved that about it. The summary inside the book jacket really does not do this book justice. It's about so much more than those few words.
One thing that I loved was the characters and their relationships. Paige was an excellent narrator and I loved seeing her conflict. Her turmoil over having lost her boyfriend Aaron a year previously was very realistically portrayed. There was conflict and pain, but it wasn't over the top like I was afraid it might be.
The friendships in this book were phenomenal. Tessa, Kayleigh, and Morgan were absolutely fantastic. And I loved that even though they fought, they were always there for each other. That's what real friends are. In so many books the friends argue and separate, like one fight has broken something they been building for years. Here they argued, they fumed, and they moved on. Because their friendship was worth more than petty issues that no one would remember ten years down the road.
Another thing that made this book great was the slow burning romance. And the fact that even though there were two guys, there was never a love triangle. And both guys are good! This seems to so rarely happen. Sure one of them was the right guy for Paige, but not because the other one turned out to be a jerk. Both Max and Ryan were great characters and added a lot to the story (though I'm partial to Max, obviously). And there was no insta-love. Everything was built slowly and beautifully. Even the drama that is inevitable was understandable. They are teenagers, after all. There has to be some drama somewhere.
Paige's parents were another great addition. So often parents are ignored in YA fiction, but here they played key roles. And their relationship, as a divorced couple, was complicated, to say the least. But their love and support as Paige was growing up was absolutely brilliant. They truly wanted what was best for their children and even though they didn't always understand or agree with them, they were trying.
This is a story about growing up, dealing with grief, falling in love, learning to live as yourself, and trusting in your support system. It's about making new friends when making friends is hard, about taking chances when it would be easier not to. It was just a wonderful book that I look forward to reading again.
One thing that I loved was the characters and their relationships. Paige was an excellent narrator and I loved seeing her conflict. Her turmoil over having lost her boyfriend Aaron a year previously was very realistically portrayed. There was conflict and pain, but it wasn't over the top like I was afraid it might be.
The friendships in this book were phenomenal. Tessa, Kayleigh, and Morgan were absolutely fantastic. And I loved that even though they fought, they were always there for each other. That's what real friends are. In so many books the friends argue and separate, like one fight has broken something they been building for years. Here they argued, they fumed, and they moved on. Because their friendship was worth more than petty issues that no one would remember ten years down the road.
Another thing that made this book great was the slow burning romance. And the fact that even though there were two guys, there was never a love triangle. And both guys are good! This seems to so rarely happen. Sure one of them was the right guy for Paige, but not because the other one turned out to be a jerk. Both Max and Ryan were great characters and added a lot to the story (though I'm partial to Max, obviously). And there was no insta-love. Everything was built slowly and beautifully. Even the drama that is inevitable was understandable. They are teenagers, after all. There has to be some drama somewhere.
Paige's parents were another great addition. So often parents are ignored in YA fiction, but here they played key roles. And their relationship, as a divorced couple, was complicated, to say the least. But their love and support as Paige was growing up was absolutely brilliant. They truly wanted what was best for their children and even though they didn't always understand or agree with them, they were trying.
This is a story about growing up, dealing with grief, falling in love, learning to live as yourself, and trusting in your support system. It's about making new friends when making friends is hard, about taking chances when it would be easier not to. It was just a wonderful book that I look forward to reading again.
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