4.5 ⭐️

You’re hooked by the casual mention of quid pro quo foot jobs in chapter one, but you stay for lines like “When you love someone,” he said haltingly, “… you want to make this world look different for them. To give all the ugly stuff meaning, and amplify the good. That’s what you do. For your readers. For me.”. 

January and Gus aren’t perfect, and that’s okay. They aren’t supposed to be. She’s grieving. He’s healing. They’re figuring their shit out, and that’s the point. Henry writes the growth of their relationship from neighbors to friends to more, smoothly and with the tension you’d expect from the synopsis. 

Memorable quotes: 

“ It wasn’t that I couldn’t get enough of him. Or that he was the best man I’ve ever known. (I thought that was my dad, but now it was the dad from my favorite, 2000s teen drama, Veronica Mars) #TEAMKEITH

"I’m nothing but your wife. January's mother. I’m nothing else, and I don’t think you can imagine how that feels. To be forty-two and feel like you’ve done everything you’re going to do”

"He tossed my shirt aside, then studied me intensely. “God,” he said, voice deep, raspy.
     I fought a smile. “Are you praying to me, Gus?”