Blair and Declan were inseparable growing up—best friends who knew each other better than anyone else. But just as quickly as their romance started, one moment shattered it all, leaving them with nothing but heartbreak and silence.
Now, four years later, Blair is back in their coastal hometown of Seabrook to support her mom and care for her great-aunt Lottie as her health declines. To make ends meet, Blair applies to work at a coffee shop—only to discover it’s managed by none other than Declan.
When I requested this advanced copy, all I knew was that it was a “BookTok” creator’s debut novel. After reading the first chapter, I was surprised by the writing style. And by “surprised”, I mean I was reading sentences aloud to my boyfriend and then saying “This doesn’t even make sense.” Pham was clearly trying to showcase a flowery and poetic writing style that is common in the romance genre. However, instead of free-flowing, emotional verse, most of it felt clunky and over-written. There were several sentences where a thesaurus had clearly been incorrectly utilized, creating an almost Mad-Libs situation. In the first chapter, the phrase “conglomerate of pedestrians” is used, and things truly went downhill from there.
In addition to odd syntax and overt attempts at verbiose language, this book was devoid of development. There are dual timelines, high school and a current timeline, with only one narrator, Blair. And unfortunately for us, Blair is the worst. She is dealing with a lot of disappointment, anxiety, and grief when we meet her in the current timeline, right after her college graduation. The book, while touted as a romance, truly focuses on her summer dealing with those three emotions. I expected a growth arc, with Blair realizing how much her insensitive and selfish actions are affecting the people closest to her, highlighted by the rekindling of a high school romance. Instead, Blair remains exactly the same throughout the book, as does every single other character, which leaves us with absolutely zero character development.
So we’re dealing with a clunky writing style, an unlikeable main character, and no actual character development. This leaves all of the heavy lifting to the plot. And truly, I still had hope. Romances can be very character-led, but still need a good plot. However, dear reader, we did not get a plot capable of lifting any weight at all. The romance plot of this book was very formulaic (it’s a second-chance romance, you know exactly what to expect), but the larger plot of this book that deals with the death of a loved one was full of wild cards.
There are several large issues that are presented as plot points due to this character’s death that were immediately solvable. The flaw of having only one narrator is their inherent unreliability. In this case, Blair’s thoughts resembled a 12-year-old more than a 22-year-old. Combined with an epidemic of miscommunication, and worse, no communication, a solid 60% of this book focuses on issues that could be resolved with easy conversations. Instead, these simple issues were resolved with grandiose and unrealistic solutions. To avoid spoilers, this is a generic (but very similar) example: I have an older car with several mechanical issues that finally breaks down. I’m stressed about what to do, so I talk to my mom. Instead of getting the car repaired or looking at purchasing another used car, my mom tells me she just won a contest and a Lamborghini is actually being delivered to our house the next day.
The plot is also where the “self-insert” nature of this novel began to become its demise. Before reading this book, I had a very vague knowledge of the author. After getting a few chapters in, I did some research. And after learning about Pham’s very early rise to fame, things started to make more sense. While watching a few of her more recent bookish vlogs, I was frustrated to learn that she has re-written a chapter of this book since advanced copies went out, and I have no information on which version I received. I was also frustrated with how a lot of the characters, especially Blair, acted about common life experiences, which highlighted the disconnect between the average person and Pham’s unique lifestyle.
I think this hits all the marks for a very generic second-chance romance with no spice that heavily emphasizes living with grief. Truthfully, the romance plot of this book is very hot and cold. In terms of pacing, it feels like it takes the whole 350 pages for any romance to truly blossom, with both main characters acting like it’s impossible to rekindle a high school relationship four years later. However, there are many intimate scenes physically and emotionally that seem to pop up out of nowhere, leaving the couple acting stiff and unnatural in between their moments of connection. And to clarify about “intimate” with “no spice,” there’s a lot of oddly descriptive PG-13 scenes that are uncomfortable to read no matter what spice level you’re used to.
Overall, this is a book I struggled to finish. I persevered because I wanted to be able to provide a thorough and detailed review, which I hope will be helpful to the many potential readers who are curious about the book and the readers who have finished the book and want to see how other people felt. If any of this book’s wildly specific traits caught your eye, I wouldn’t stop you from reading this! I would add the caveat that grief and death are HUGE in this book, and that may be something you’re looking to avoid. However, if the book’s appeal is more about its author and overall hype than its contents, you may find it lacking like I did.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster Publishing and Atria Books for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
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