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thegabscast's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
When we meet Ali, she’s grieving the loss of her mother and the end of her marriage. She is stuck in a rut and hasn’t been taking care of herself and has been absent from her own life. One day, she gets motivated to go to the dog park and her dog pees on a handsome man. Enter: Ethan. Ethan is funny, smart, kind, and doesn’t live in town. Ali thinks she can sign up for a summer romance, but as a rom-com, this obviously develops into something so much more. I loved how the exposition was done in this book. You slowly start to understand just how Ali got to this point in her life and really root for her to find her happiness. Ethan is very sweet, although a couple of his memories and how obsessed he was with Ali back in high school took me out of the story a couple of times. I do love how you come to understand him as well and why he doesn’t want to move back to his hometown. I adored Phyllis and her insights. Frannie was a bit annoying and her parents were very inconsiderate of their children, but I didn’t hate them. I really loved that the characters weren’t all in their 20s and felt like fully fleshed out people with realistic problems. The relationships all had depth to them and felt so human. I do wish we had gotten a little bit more time with Ethan’s trajectory as his story felt a bit rushed towards the end. I do also wish Ali’s motivation to put herself back together stemmed a lot less from finding a new love and was more inspired by how her emotional absence was impacting her children. It just felt like a really easy way to fall into a bad pattern. Overall, I really liked this book and how it tackled the topics of loss, divorce, and finding yourself again. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a romance book with a little more substance. I give it 4/5 stars. There is sexual tension but no spice, the one scene is closed door/fade to black.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Terminal illness, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Toxic relationship and Abandonment
Minor: Bullying, Drug abuse, and Miscarriage
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