It pains me to rate this 1 star. The first few chapters are some of the best character building, best dialogue, one of the cutest meet cutes of the last 10 years. Samantha and Xavier have wonderful back stories, they are great characters, I would want to be friends with them. I never really like an “insta love”trope, as it feels like lust to me. I prefer the time tested “friends to lovers” or even “enemies to lovers” can be done well. But that is the least problematic thing, even though it is insta-love, it feels not like lust but instead like a REAL connection based on shared interests and good chemistry.
I appreciate how daunting of a task it is to write about dementia, it is an issue that affects more and more families every year. It is heartbreaking and raw and hard. And if someone sees their pain on these pages and feels seen and understood, I am grateful for that person. But the way the family handles Samantha’s mother’s early onset dementia really bothered me. She was very unsafe, they were completely incapable of assisting her, there were 5 adults living with her and they were failing daily because they “promised her she could stay at home.” It is painful to watch.
And although Samantha and Xavier had a great connection early on, they decided to have a long distance relationship from the very start. I had a visceral reaction to how BAD of an idea this is, how you cannot be in a real relationship with someone without a foundation. This tricked the characters into thinking they loved each other more than they could have. A good connection is a great start, but you cannot commit to someone thousands of miles away. There was a lot of “yearning” in this novel, and it was so painfully obvious that the characters were trauma bonding over their situation, their financial problems.
Xavier was a gem, a wonderful person despite having horrible parents, he had good boundaries and kept his distance. I applaud the author for having a character with estranged parents that was a good situation, there is no reconciliation. That is a lot of people’s stories and this was well done. But honestly, they were SO awful, almost comedically so, and Xavier continued to make bad decisions in order to “show” them.
Over and over they fell more and more in love despite not even knowing each other. It didn’t even make sense for Samantha to move to California into such a crowded house to help her mother when she was so incapable. And then honestly on EVERY OTHER PAGE these terrible things would happen and it was so much trauma bonding I could not handle it.
Girls, do not get into a committed relationship with someone you barely know, particularly one with abusive parents, in a long distance situation. You will be tricked into thinking you are more in love than you are, and when you finally come back together you will put up with a LOT that you would not have put up with. Because of all the work it took to get together! You will ignore all the red flags.
Not since Twilight have I been so angry at a “romance” that was not romantic.
After all that, again, I have to repeat myself. I am sure a lot of people will rate this 5 stars, and I GET IT. It has SO much going for it. But I do not find this romantic at all, I am drowning in red flags.
Other things I loved- Samantha’s brother and Xavier’s friends and his mentor, Dr Hank.
In short, this book is perfect in every way except for what HAPPENS in it.
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