Idk, I guess I see the hype around this though I don’t necessarily agree. Because this book is beautifully written, but I disagree with this book on one of its most basic premises: I just don’t feel this as a romance. This book makes more sense to me as a sweet friendship story/coming of age. Ari locks away a lot of his emotions and this book really suffers for it.

And a strange side note: while I enjoyed Lin-Manuel Miranda’s narration, I think the lyrical quality of this book comes through better in the actual prose itself. As such, I enjoyed this better while I was reading it vs listening to it.