Let me start off by saying I loved this book, couldn’t put it down, and was almost late to work because I knew I just needed to finish it first.

This book follows some fantastic tropes: friends-to-lovers, it’s always been you, second chance romance… It maintains a dual timeline storytelling structure, where you watch the two main characters grow up together from the age of 13 to present time, and everything that happened to them in between.

I loved Percy and Sam in this story – I loved their imperfections and watching them try to figure out how to shift their friendship into something more. I loved the reality of how challenging long-distance relationships can be. Personally, I loved nearly everything about this story and I highly recommend it to anyone else who feels like these traits resonate with them as well.

A few notes, though: 1) there is a cheating trope that does not necessarily sneak up on you. I can understand why it happened, but I also think it was a pretty awful move on the part of the characters (granted, sometimes that’s what happens!). 2) This story is VERY similar to Christina Lauren’s “Love and Other Words” – and while I loved CLo’s story immensely, the similarity has been a sticking point for a lot of readers. I definitely recognize the similarities, but there were a number of differences too, and each author managed to create completely different characters that gripped at my heart – and I think they’ll pull you in just as much, too.