I am a sucker for a book about first loves reuniting after years apart. I place the blame for that firmly on Persuasion, my favorite book by Jane Austen.

When I learned that this book surrounds around this very trope, I knew I wanted it.

That being said, I wasn’t going into this book with dramatically high expectations. I don’t read a ton of women’s fiction that I actually enjoy, although I am attempting to broaden my horizons in that aspect.

Thankfully, this book definitely surpassed my expectations. While it isn’t perfect, I found it an engaging and quick read.

What I liked:

1. Reunited first loves trope. I know that trope is a dirty word for many people, but there’s a reason they exist. People have certain things that they enjoy in literature and other media, and for me, this is one of my favorites.

2. Macy and Elliot’s relationship. Even though there is a lot of messiness in the beginning of the present day sections, I still found myself smiling and rooting for this couple. I loved getting to see their friendship develop over the course of years. As someone who has been happily married to her high school sweetheart for nearly 17 years, I connected with the young Macy and Elliot. I really appreciated that these two felt so comfortable with each other that it wouldn’t even occur to Macy to be embarrassed about discussing her period with her friend who happens to be a male.

3. Macy’s relationship with her dad. I loved their dynamic. I loved that her mother made her father a list before she passed away to help him deal with raising a daughter all on his own.

What I didn’t like:

1. Manufactured drama. At the beginning of the book Macy is engaged to a man it is obvious she doesn’t actually love. She’s only with him because it’s easy. She literally chooses him because she knows that he can never break her heart the way Elliot did. After she reconnects with Elliot and becomes increasingly aware of the fact that she doesn’t actually love her fiancé, she refuses to really deal with it. She doesn’t break up with him until page 257. I just kept thinking that if I knew Macy in real life I would’ve thumped her upside the head and told her to put on her big-girl panties and tend to her shit!
And then the fact that she lies (by omission) to Elliot about the status of her relationship. She had some vague excuse as to why she didn’t want to tell him, but for me it just all felt like one big plot device because the authors didn’t know how to create conflict between Macy and Elliot after repeatedly asserting that they were each other’s person.

2. Side characters. There are many characters in this book. Only a couple of them are actually fleshed out. Sabrina and Duncan are probably the best side characters here. So many others — Desmond, Rachel, Nicki, Danny, as well as Elliot’s entire family and high school friends— are painted with very broad strokes. Most appear in only one scene in the book, and then are never heard from again. Sean is interesting in some ways, but his behavior was too inconsistent for me. And then half way through the book he and his daughter disappear from the book altogether.

Other odds and ends:

*This reminded me a lot of Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson, if those characters didn’t reconnect until adulthood. The main character in both books flee whenever the going gets tough and push down their feelings instead of dealing with them. They both spend their vacations away from home and fall in love with sweet boys who are locals in their vacation towns. These books both also deal with grief, although I will say that SCS gutted me emotionally in a way that this just didn’t.

*The big reveal felt a little melodramatic. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but it definitely didn’t have the emotional punch I was hoping to read.

*I’m so glad this book didn’t have Macy and Elliot cheating with each other. That would’ve really bothered me quite a bit.

This is my first Christina Lauren book and it definitely won’t be my last.