I am again stunned by the prowess in Buchanan's words. There are so many stand-out sentences that made me pause to consider how she's using the language in a way few would, but in a way that bleeds beauty through the page and deep into my writer's weary soul. In addition, the writing, and the story, has a dull, aching quality that stands out differently, allowing me to indulge in a hundred pages in a sitting as the main characters, husband and wife, remain in place, together but apart, pondering what the hell they're going to do next and whether or not that will include staying together and/or alive.

**TW/CW: Suicidal ideation, depression**

From the author's note:
"If you are fighting with your own sadness or love someone who is, this note is for you. The seed of this book emerged from the struggles of people very dear to me and from my own challenges. Not everyone who is sad is sick but I have been sick and I have loved those who were sick. However, the characters within this book are fictional beings. Their views are their own and should not be taken as advice.
Whether you have a long or short road to health is a mixture of luck, circumstance, and biology. In writing this book, I hoped simply to write the story of two people attempting to walk that path together.
But I would like to say this:
Every day you try again is an act of bravery. Although this is worthy of pride, you may not feel able to be proud of yourself. So I would like to wish you congratulations on being here today."

The first pages find Mina literally and figuratively on a precipice. She stands at the edge of a bridge between New York and New Jersey, considering if this is the attempt that will end her life. A police officer stops her before she can make a decision and calls her husband, Oscar. They're still newlyweds but on the very night of their wedding, she took many pills and nearly died. The pair have been together a decade, but it could be that Mina's mental instability will be the wedge that drives them apart despite her need for his help and care and his desire to give her just that. In a final ploy to better his wife, Oscar takes them to London, for a breather. He works for his father's import company and can do so from anywhere and takes it upon himself to live in and freshen up the pair of apartments his father has held onto for decades, readying them for sale. Mina takes a leave from her university work to take on a research project, and leaves all of her medications behind, even her birth control, because she is sure that her pills weren't doing anything for her mental health and wants to prove to her psychiatrist that she can level out, all on her own.

In the new surroundings, they seem to do alright. On shaky footing, Mina does her best to not be needy and Oscar puts down firm rules, including insisting on a tracking app on her phone so he knows where she is at all times. He pushes her to try even harder to take care of herself, without his prodding, and "just be happy". Early on Oscar's best school friend Theo and Theo's sister Phoebe come over, and Mina becomes a touch obsessed with the other young woman, frazzled as she enters the end of an acrimonious divorce. The obsession becomes a friendship, between the women and Phoebe's big, fluffy dog Benson, and just in time as Oscar is called away to dote on a client in person back in New York. Mina promises she'll be fine and Oscar insists that she will be, though he's nervous and it is then that both know this will be the deciding factor in their relationship and their lives, as they separate physically and their emotions work through each with a volatility that could mean a legal separation is also in their near future.