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The last thing I thought I’d be caught doing is reading a friends-to-lovers romance novel intentionally, but I picked this up on a whim, and I honestly feel like my life has been reset.
This dual narrative story takes place over the course of about nine days, I believe, and we flip between events that happened over six years and the present.
I feel like this was a very realistic romance novel, and the author really captured that scary feeling of discovering your emotions might not be as friendly as you thought.
I loved watching Joni, our female lead, wrestle with these feelings, eventually having to let them go, and then finally reconciling herself with the fact that the feelings would never truly disappear.
I’ll say right off the bat that they do get a happily ever after – because, for all intents and purposes, this is a romance novel – but this book really shows why the journey to get there matters.
One thing I always appreciate is when an author writes for the story, not the trends. Lately, I’ve read a couple of books where it’s obvious the writer’s goal was to craft Instagrammable quotes or just be edgy.
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In this one, everything flows like poetry – easy to read and emotionally rich. I just felt swept up in the romance of it all.
This is actually a debut work, and I’m definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for anything else this author writes because I loved what I saw here.
Of course, there were similarities between this book and those of Emily Henry, as well as some of the other lighthearted romantic comedy books, but I’ll draw the line and say I generally prefer this author’s style to Emily Henry’s. I’ll talk more about that in a totally different post, but if you like Henry’s style, you might want to give this one a chance.
My favorite thing about this book is how it focused on romance but also explored the growing pains we face when we least expect them. The book is told from Joni’s POV, which I personally felt was a bit of a disservice because our male lead, Ren, is such an interesting character.
I would have loved to see things unfold from his perspective as well. But I really appreciated following the female lead through so many different stages of her life – from moving to a new place, to essentially scraping by, to enduring backbreaking hours at work, and everything that came after. I found that so inspiring.
There’s a quote I took from the last paragraph of the book that has been echoing in my head even more than two weeks after reading it, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it:
This stretch I feel in my chest all the time isn’t scary, but wonderful, my body making room for all the people and places and jobs and experiences I’ll love in my lifetime.
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More than anything, I feel like this quote really captures the fear you feel when stepping into the world for the first time, but it does it in such a hopeful way. And I love that this book doesn’t give us any perfect characters. We get to see them grow in real time, and that was just marvelous to witness.
I feel like authors these days are sometimes too careful, avoiding writing characters who could be problematic. But honestly, I don’t want every character to be neatly redeemable.
I want characters who simply exist as they are and if you lean into whatever makes them compelling, readers will follow. In this book, we got to see many of the characters at their worst, at their best, and in moments where they wanted to be good but failed.
Nobody is truly a villain, and this book really highlighted that. I completely appreciated it.
I will always be a sucker for a book about yearning, and that is exactly what we get here. Our male and female leads have no idea of the kind of hold they have on each other.
Now that I’ve read this, along with other friends-to-lovers romance novels, I can absolutely see the appeal of being with someone who knows you inside and out, who’s seen you at your best and worst, and held you through your highest and lowest moments. These two really redefined intensity, and I loved every second of it.
This is the perfect summer book, and I think you should absolutely check it out if you’re looking for something with complicated family dynamics, a story about growing up and letting go, and ultimately opening yourself to the unpredictability of life.
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