This book contains:
- Death of a loved one due to cancer (was also in their 20s)
- Divorce
- Difficult relationships with parents.
Becca is a hot-headed aspiring actress with a massive chip on her shoulder thanks to the relationship she has with her parents. Especially how she was given to her grandmother to raise when her parents separated.
Charlie on the other hand is a laid-back guy who tends to go with the flow and tries to keep the peace and not rock the boat. Ever. Just like Becca’s parents separation shaped her, Charlie’s parents separation shaped him.
Becca’s best friend, and Charlie’s fiancé dies at the tender age of 26 due to cancer. After her death, both struggles to cope with their grief and how to move on.
Unbeknownst to them, Ally set up a series of challenges for them to remember her, process their grief and also support each other while they moved through it. Over the span of years, this book takes us through Becca and Charlie’s relationship, stages of grief and moving on with their lives.
I think the best thing about this book is that we get snippets of each year from both character’s perspectives. While most chapters are about when the two characters meet up, either to commemorate Ally’s death, or some other friendship event – some are snippets of their own life.
While this structure of writing is probably unusual for most people to read, each “chapter” was a normal chapter’s length making it flow nicely. Once you get used to the sudden changes in where our characters are, what’s happened in their lives in the months between each “chapter” etc.
While I’m sure there will be some people who struggle with this, I really enjoyed it because it traversed such a long time you really got to see how the characters relationship changed and evolved over time. This made their growth and development so much more realistic while also allowing them to go through so much more than we normally get to see in books.
Overall, it made it super interesting to read without being an obvious romance book. In fact, I think for 70% or more it could more accurately be classes as a fiction book rather than a romance.
