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A review by karenika
I'd Give Anything by Marisa de los Santos

4.0

“You really think they don’t?” asks Avery. “Not only that, but I’m beginning to believe that the bad might not take anything away from the love. I mean, it’s possible, isn’t it? They might care about us just exactly as much as we always thought.”

I've long been a fan of Marisa de los Santos. I love her storytelling and her characters. They always stay with me long after I finish the story and this one was no exception. This is the story of Ginny Beale who is very close to her brother and has a tight group of friends during high school. She ends up having a falling out with all of them. Except for one, with whom she ends up making up and staying lifelong friends.

At the very beginning of the story, she finds out her husband is part of a scandal and it unwinds her whole life. Making everything fall apart and when chance encounters cause her to realize all the misunderstandings she's lived her life with, she starts putting the pieces back together.

“Lately, I’ve been thinking about it this way,” says Gray. “They love us. And they’ve done something bad that hurt us. You’d think those facts would cancel each other out, but the crazy thing is that they don’t.”

This is a story about the insidious nature of secrets. How they have a way of breaking people, families, friendships, and lives. A way of weaving thorns through your soul and ripping you from the inside out. It's about forgiving. It's about mending. It's also about honesty and owning up to the truths of our lives.

It's a beautiful story and I loved the time I spent with it.

with gratitude to edelweiss and William Morrow for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.