A review by booksandboardingpass
This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith

3.0

“I haven’t properly handled her death yet, really. I can’t. I try, I guess… but none of it makes sense. She was there and now she’s just gone? Everything gets too slippery. My brain can’t … hold it. It feels both final and eternal at the same time. I can’t process it so I just let it… sit there… dark.”

“I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the winter, either. No one does. None of us know what’s going to happen one day to the next in this life. We just… keep going.” she said, surprising herself by being so bare with him. She could’ve tried to pretend like the winter would be no problem for her, that she was translucently optimistic about her future. She’d gotten used to pretending with people who didn’t know her well - and her family, too, when she didn’t feel like discussing it. It was easier to act like she’d always be fine, but she knew better. Even people without a history of mental illness had to ho to great lengths to protect their mental health.”

“True forgiveness is severely underrated, for both the forgiven and the forgiven. I knew I had to find a way to forgive Joel so I could go on with my life.”

“In a little town like Bloom, being a quarter black meant being not-white meant being one hundred percent black meant being an other. A threat to white supremacy.”

“After love, forgiveness is the strongest glue holding every family together.”