I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting to read this one from the first moment the author mentioned it. And then she had to spend a little longer on it because it was really going differently than she’d expected. You know what? I will wait every extra minute I have to for Penny Reid to polish and perfect her books because they are always perfect! I also love how her books feature real people, with real issues, with real types of lives, instead of the perfect people so often featured in romances especially. While I don’t think I’m on the autism spectrum, there are characteristics I know I share with people like Byron. Many of his thoughts and reasons are so similar to my own thoughts and reasons for doing or not doing things. I don’t usually share those with others because I feel like they’d think I was weird, or else tell me I was being dumb to think that way. I’ve even had people call me out on things and tell me I was doing what I know or maybe didn’t realize I was subconsciously doing at times. But Byron was his own type of guy. And I would be like Winnie was at the beginning, so frustrated with him, and thinking he didn’t like her.

Winnie though was another side of me in a way as well. I am also a public school educator. I went from 17 years of being a middle school science teacher, to now being a public school librarian. While she got upset about Byron saying she was underpaid, I agree with him. Although when I first was going to college to be a teacher, I heard the same thing from people all the time about how I shouldn’t be a teacher because of the pay. But I guess I kind of explained it the same way she argued with him about the salary. It was more than just the job similarities between Winnie and I that made me connect with her though. It was how she would just let other people be, and not speak up in order to avoid confrontation for one thing. I know that is something I have got to work on myself. But I did get so mad when when the others called her out on it. Even though I know it was true for the most part. In fact when her friend said she was being selfish for assuming that she’d move out with her boyfriend, um, NO! That’s an obvious next step in any serious relationship, there is no reason she wouldn’t assume that.

One other thing about Winnie that was a bit that hit me hard, was when she said she needed to “let the idea of him go because that’s what he was. An idea.” That is my problem. I develop crushes similar to what she had on her friend Jeff. They just seem like the perfect person for me. But they’re not really interested in me, or I’m basing it off of the very surface level things I know about them. That phrasing, though, the just an idea thing, just perfectly put.

At times the romance parts, their relationship was so hard to read. But that’s in a good way! Don’t get me wrong! However I feel it was real to do it that way. And so many other real parts to this. How she didn’t like the taste of what she swallowed during a certain scene. Then that made her self-conscious and not want him to do the same thing for her because of it. Yes. I get that so much. Oh my gosh, I could go on and on and gush about all the realistic parts of this, all the perfection of this story, but I am going to stop. I am going to just tell you that you need to read this one yourself. It is a little long, true, but every part is worth every bit of time you spend reading it.

Review first appeared on Lisa Loves Literature.