CW: Anxiety, finger picking, postpartum depression

When Dustin met Willow, he knew he had met the one. Which is why three years later when Dustin arrives home to find his infant daughter alone, and Willow no-where to be found, he's heartbroken and confused. Travelling back to his family home, which he had previously escaped due to a toxic environment,Dustin begins thinking about if he ever really knew his girlfriend at all.

This was a sweet book that tried to really deliver a story that was full of first love, mental health struggles and the reality of being a young parent, as well as possibly suffering from postpartum depression to the reader and while I'm sure this story would work really well for others, I just didn't find myself invested in it or the characters.

The story felt both overwritten and underwritten to me in different parts (which I have to say is probably also the fault of the editor who didn't decide to cross some unnecessary parts out). We have passages where Willow and Dustin go to a party and practically list every person there and where they came from, and considering the only proper friend in the book is Willow's cousin Georgia, we don't need to know about everyone else so listing them out was a waste of time. And then there were a lot of parts of the story that were vague such as Dustin's family life - his sister's relationship and his mom's relationship, his mom's previous toxic behavior and how she overcame that and pretty much everything to do with Willow felt skimmed over.

There's a real conversational tone to the narrative that I didn't enjoy which I think is where a lot of the overwritten parts come into it. Because it feels friendly and like Willow and Dustin are chatting to their friend or a diary, they say too much and most of it doesn't matter.

There were characters in the book that probably could have done more such as Georgia and Alicia - though Georgia was probably actually the strongest side character in the novel - as well as Naomi who seemed like she should have been a bigger character in the book but maybe the author just forgot about her? Willow's gran Mary was a lovely character but she was just a gran, and didn't seem to have anything in her personality beyond that. Grans are loving and kind, and a brilliant support system but that doesn't mean that's all they are as humans! Gran deserved more.

I really didn't buy into Dustin and Willow's relationship at all tbh. There was zero chemistry and the both of them just seemed like total drips and I didn't really like either of them. As readers, we just had to accept that they were totally in love because I don't think it was ever really shown on the page and the chemistry was as flat as a pancake. Again, there was a vagueness in the ins and outs of their relationship and how they apparently always pranked each other, but we saw it only once on the page and the rest of the time they didn't really do much together at all. I also don't know why there was so much emphasis on their daughter Zara being a slow developer but it actually not bringing much to the story (besides Willow worrying about it). Willow is also suppose to be obsessed with knitting but it also doesn't bring anything to the story either, and it seems to be forgotten about after she knits the blanket for Dustin/Zara.

I didn't particularly like the end. It was underwhelming and honestly slightly weird with the origin of the packages (I don't know but it made zero sense why you would do that). The very end of it felt a little bit too To All the Boys I Loved Before but Lara Jean's letter writing skills are much, much better - and I actually believe her where I don't believe Willow ever knew what she wanted.

There is mental health representation which I know is something the author had first hand experience of, and she always tries to bring good mental health rep into her books which I appreciate. We see Willow suffer from anxiety and panic attacks and definitely a form of postpartum depression throughout the novel.