oakleylynch's reviews
42 reviews

3.0

dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I had been following the author of this novel for quite some time on Instagram prior to reading this book, and I can confidentally say it did not disappoint! Despite being a 'steamy'/'spicy' romance, the first half of this book (I read this on Kindle, I can confidentally gear this at 60% of the book) was almost completely mental health focused, alongside a 10/10 did NOT see it coming twist at the end! The rest of the review is tagged with spoilers as it includes not only spoilers, but trigger warnings.

At the start, Phoenix, the protagonist and heorine of the story, has just gotten out a mental health hospital due to a suicide attempt. In this hospital, she had a schizophrenic best friend named Drew who spends the novel communicating with Nix through phone calls up until the epilogue. She also, for reasons not shown until later, prefers 'Nix' as a nickname rather than Phoenix. Immediately meeting her neighbours, by them breaking into her home (it was funny), she quickly finds a family with them as she falls for James, the oldest son of Jim Russo. The younger son, Leo, is a former drug addict and partakes in underground fight clubs at the beginning of the novel, up until Phoenix is injured after attending one with him in which he decides to get sober and clean. At this point, the dislike of Phoenix's name is brought up as she says that she is nothing like a phoenix, and James says he disagrees in a very lovey-dovey way. Leo is also very quickly adopted into Phoenixs' life as 'Nixie' and her being his 'older sister'. Throughout the novel, Phoenix is grieving over her fathers death and being disowned by her mother and feeling unloved by her family while the Russo men are dealing with the death of their mother/spouse. At the turning point and midpoint of the entire novel, James reveals to Phoenix that their mother died via suicide, and that he feels at fault for her death for not answering a phone call she made to him beforehand. James also very blatantly does not understand depression as a mental health struggle, and how it can affect people. Leo knocks some sense into him (somewhat literally) after Phoenix reveals her true past after the reveal of his mothers cause of death and James freaks out on her and says he can't do that with someone else and have that risk. They resolve this, talk it over, and have a fairly healthy relationship throughout the entire novel, based around communication and willingness to understand. James doesn't understand why his mother did what she did, or why Phoenix did what she did, but he explicitly expresses interest to try to. At around this time, they travel to Nix's hometown where they run into her mother and both James and Phoenix speak to her. Throughout the novel, I felt as though I was seeing two people with trauma and mental health issues learn to move past heartache as well as the trauma and struggles they experience in healthy ways through communicating what they are feeling - even if at first there is disagreement or negative reactions. I won't mention the big plot twist, but I will put a trigger warning for gun violence and child death, at around the midpoint to the end.

All in all, I would rate this book a 4.5/5 stars and I would definitely read again! The other .5 is due to some of the reptitive nature of wording, but I genuinely adored this story and it made me sob (at a ridiculous time in the late hours of the morning) with how emotional it gets when the characters get vulnerable and honest with each other and start growing in their arcs. I'd say it's a medium paced book, it feels as though it moves fast once you get past the first half, but I was not bored in the slightest reading through the mental health segments. As someone with diagnosed mental health things, I felt seen in Phoenix and felt as though it was a very accurate portrayal of depression and anxiety and other mental health issues, and had good mental health representation. Also, 10/10 steamy scenes!

Content Warnings