All right I'll freely admit that for most of this book I was convinced it was going to be a solid three stars and no less. But the last few sections completely changed that for me and it was a complete 180 and now I can see how so many people fell in love with this story. I will endeavor to not give spoilers because I feel it is a book worth reading.

The main issues I did have was that Sadie was, for the most part, unlikeable. I know there is a lot of back and forth on whether or not that should be important but sometimes it is. And while a lot of my issues with her stemmed from her being so young, at some point that stopped being enough of a reason. She didn't have any accountability for her actions and most of the time tried to pin them on others. This is not discounting any of the frustrations she had at the way the world viewed her as a woman in video games because that was understandable. It was more that she would make mistakes and steps that she knew was wrong but would justify them and then blame others for when it turned out shitty.

Sam also wasn't flawless because he was very emotionally immature for the majority of the book. A lot of that had to do with his situation that lead to them meeting but he was standoffish and mean. Like he would get upset and not be able to articulate why and then would lash out. When he did this with Sadie it became a fight between them all the time. So they were constantly butting heads despite their connection.

Marx was the best character in the book IMO, with the exception of the respective grandparents and Sam's mom, Anna, who we didn't get to see know a lot about. Her sister was kind of a bitch and yes while one could excuse her for being that way, it's also shitty to let a sick child take it out on their sibling who had no control over anything, which is what Sadie's parents did and also why they weren't great either. Also because of the Space Camp. Seriously...Sadie was well within her rights to be butthurt about the lack of Space Camp.

But Marx really made this book for a lot of people and it was an interesting choice to make him be a hidden aspect of the book since he's not really mentioned in the synopsis. It's hard to not fall in love with Marx.

Aside from that though this book does really good of discussing and describing grief in its various forms. It does a good job of showing how important platonic friendships are and that, as much as you may love or be attracted to someone, that doesn't mean you need to have a romantic and physical relationship with them. All in all beautiful and I highly recommend it. The first part of it may be bumpy but trust me the journey is well worth it.