I can usually tell how I feel about a book when I try explaining the plot to someone else. In this case, I was doing a lot of "right!?" when they'd react with "that's not normal." I think you have to just accept a lot of things for this plot to work. Yes these two adult women love their old teacher so much that they would do this. There are contrivances. There is melodrama. There is repetition of the same character struggles. If you're more of a cynical person, you're probably not going to like this as much as someone who is more willing to go with the melodramatic flow. 

I did like the book overall, but I think I enjoyed it a bit less because I'm a little tapped out for contemporary grief romances and I had just finished a book that was pretty much perfectly to my taste. The audiobook narrators were both great.