mssamanthanagel's reviews
133 reviews

This book won’t be for everyone - and that’s okay, I don’t think it was meant to be.

If you’re looking for the average romantic comedy style book, please keep in mind that this is very much genre bending, and not something I would categorize as “romance” in the sense of Emily Henry.

This is a story between two characters and the worlds they live in, and create together, inside their minds. Aldo has previously suffered from substance abuse, and is heavily autistic coded. Regan is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. This is a story of two people finding love that is messy, imperfect, and a good chunk of the story is written as if you are also in a manic episode.

To the reviews who didn’t like the sudden style change - this happened as Regan came off her medication and started experiencing her bipolar disorder without her medication, which is why her POV suddenly starts to read as manic. It’s not pretentious, it’s deeply character based and immersive.

Something I would have appreciated was the authors note in the acknowledgment before the book began. Blake talks about her own experiences with having bipolar and shares that it’s a story about a woman with bipolar who learns to live without her medication through therapy, while falling in love with someone who understand her at the same time. She shares in this passage that it is in no way a recommendation for others to stop their medication without medical guidance. I do appreciate this very much, but I think it would have been better served in the beginning of the book. I also think it probably should have had a TW attached to it.

A beautiful love story! Believable and well developed characters, realistic story, amazing! On par with Emily Henry, who I have crowned the romance queen. Julia Whelan also narrated the audiobook!

Reid’s writing has matured and evolved a lot since this book was published in 2014, so if you are coming to this after consuming her more recent work, keep that in mind. The story, plot, characters, and pacing are all amazing, but the writing is juvenile and feels more like YA writing paired with an adult story, though this is understandable given her own age and genre expectations of when this was written.

I read this book in a day, it was easy to get through, and the story is great. It’s a story about a marriage that isn’t working and both people want to make work.

This was a sweet read! Both main characters are very well developed, and I naturally fell in love with both of them. I loved the single dad representation - and he was a man who goes to therapy! Yay! I also loved the representation of having a deaf child be a prominent character. The comedy scene was endearing and interesting.

I found the pacing to be off - I was so impressed with the first 25%, but then I think the pacing was rushed. Instead of the stakes steadily rising and tension getting warmer, it felt like a large chunk of the book was stagnant, then was followed by an easily avoidable third act conflict.

I loved the concept of this gender bent modern When Harry Met Sally reimagining! I’ve seen many comments being disappointed by the “retelling,” but if you go into knowing that this is NOT a retelling, it doesn’t claim to be as good (and isn’t), and it won’t have everything that the movie had, then I think you’ll like it. It very loosely follows the beats of WHMS. I thought it was quite cute and endearing!

I listened to this on audio, and of course, Julia Whelan was a great choice. I had already read Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones, so hearing tidbits of other people and storylines was so fun! I think with any book that has multiple POVs, it can be hard to feel invested in all of them right away, which made it slightly challenging to really dive into. I am not a fan of the head hopping of any character at any moment, but that is just my preference. I adjusted to it after a while!

Finally!! This book started picking up in Heir of Fire and Queen of Shadows, but this book was the first that I rated 5 stars. This is the SJM that I anticipated from the series! The characters we see felt so much more rich, everyone’s story line was great, and that ending!!! Loved it.