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A review by themermaddie
6 Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe
5.0
*banging pots and pans* THIS BOOK FUCKING DESTROYED ME
6 STARS for 6 times we almost kissed!!!!!! this book is like the best of every angsty traumatic slowburn 5+1 fic i've ever read dialed up to a thousand. miss sharpe really said LET THE FIC READERS EAT
first things first, the blurb and the cover really do not do this book justice, this story is severely under tagged, tags should say Parental Death, Grief, Trauma, Medical Trauma, No Fluff, UST, Slowburn, Forced Proximity, There Was Only One Bed, etc etc. basically this book is a lot less fluffy than the cover looks. it's very intense and about broken families and grief and healing. it's about Tate and Penny having terrible timing about recognising their feelings for one another, but it's also about their relationships with their mothers and having to grow up too fast because of financial and medical emergencies.
i mean, this is just a stunning book. the flashbacks and present day storylines blend so well, and the gradual reveal of Penny and Tate's long standing situationship is so wonderful and absolutely heart wrenching. i have never so badly wanted to lock two people in a room and force them to talk, but it's hard for their to break their long-standing unspoken agreement to Not Talk About It, they are so angsty and the UST is unbelievably good.
that being said, this was so much heavier than i was expecting. these two families are united in their love for each other but also the trauma they've seen each other through, namely Anna's cancer and the traumatic death of Penny's father which left her physically disabled from their accident. a lot of the story follows Penny and her mother Lottie's broken relationship after her father's death, dealing with a grief-stricken mother whose only grief coping mechanism seems to be hurting Penny. after all this time, Penny has just learned to push down the broken parts of her in order to appease her absent mother, and for some reason Tate always seems to be the only person there for her when she falls apart.
this is truly edge-of-my-seat-biting-my-fingernails-staying-up-until-4am-to-finish content. if you've ever inhaled a 100k fanfic in one sitting, this is for you.
6 STARS for 6 times we almost kissed!!!!!! this book is like the best of every angsty traumatic slowburn 5+1 fic i've ever read dialed up to a thousand. miss sharpe really said LET THE FIC READERS EAT
first things first, the blurb and the cover really do not do this book justice, this story is severely under tagged, tags should say Parental Death, Grief, Trauma, Medical Trauma, No Fluff, UST, Slowburn, Forced Proximity, There Was Only One Bed, etc etc. basically this book is a lot less fluffy than the cover looks. it's very intense and about broken families and grief and healing. it's about Tate and Penny having terrible timing about recognising their feelings for one another, but it's also about their relationships with their mothers and having to grow up too fast because of financial and medical emergencies.
i mean, this is just a stunning book. the flashbacks and present day storylines blend so well, and the gradual reveal of Penny and Tate's long standing situationship is so wonderful and absolutely heart wrenching. i have never so badly wanted to lock two people in a room and force them to talk, but it's hard for their to break their long-standing unspoken agreement to Not Talk About It, they are so angsty and the UST is unbelievably good.
that being said, this was so much heavier than i was expecting. these two families are united in their love for each other but also the trauma they've seen each other through, namely Anna's cancer and the traumatic death of Penny's father which left her physically disabled from their accident. a lot of the story follows Penny and her mother Lottie's broken relationship after her father's death, dealing with a grief-stricken mother whose only grief coping mechanism seems to be hurting Penny. after all this time, Penny has just learned to push down the broken parts of her in order to appease her absent mother, and for some reason Tate always seems to be the only person there for her when she falls apart.
this is truly edge-of-my-seat-biting-my-fingernails-staying-up-until-4am-to-finish content. if you've ever inhaled a 100k fanfic in one sitting, this is for you.