There's so much to say about this book.

First, I'll just say that I LOVE Essie. She is intelligent and so much more introspective than I probably was at 17. She is solution oriented and driven, even when she would have every right to just curl up in a ball and give up.

And I LOVE Roarke. I see my best friend in him, even though they don't look the same. That's how he came across to me on the page. I want to protect Roarke from everything even though he is a fictional character who would be more than capable of fighting his own battles and winning.

Liberty Bell is more complex. Everything I'm saying here is very quickly revealed, so as not to be any kind of spoiler. I see myself in her, in small ways. I grew up in a conservative small town bubble, and although my parents never forced any of that on me, I wanted to please everyone around me. So I was conservative too. I spewed the same vitriol that Essie's parents and Liberty once championed. Libby grew out of it, and her shift in thought process during college mirrored my own shift where I grew into a person that I like much more than my high school self. Thank God we aren't often judged by who were were in high school, right? And thankfully I never penned a book about all that hatred like Libby did when she was young. It makes my challenge with growing up seem so easy, and reality, it was. I had my own Mike friends to help me through it, just like Libby did.

I see real events and people woven into the fiction of this narrative. That hurts more than anything.

Spoiler

The Bundy Standoff, Josh Duggar, and various religious cults, like Waco, for examples.

The fact for so many this fictional narrative isn't fiction at all, is what makes this book so timely and so touching.

I highly recommend reading it.