So, I put off reading this book for a long time. I actually read her second book first, and thought it was cute, but not the literary masterpiece others make it out to be. There were some great conversations about immigration and race, but for some reason I didn't buy the relationship between the two leads.

Feeling like the hype around that book was unjustified made me wary of this book for the same reason. I ended up picking it up at the library because eventually I will watch the movie and like to be able to compare the two.

Again, this book turned out to be just okay for me. It has some nice moments, and Nicola Yoon has a knack for structuring her books in quirky, very readable ways, but I just didn't connect with the characters at all.

Maddy has lived in a sterile environment her entire life. Her mother, a doctor, has been protecting her from SCID, which is a disease that causes her immune system to be pretty much non-existent. Anything could be a trigger and if she were to be exposed to the outside world it would eventually lead to her death.

She is completely cut off from everyone, with the exception of a nurse and a tutor or two.

Until the day Olly and his family move in next door. She becomes immediately obsessive over their comings and goings.

Eventually Olly and Maddy connect, and are pretty much immediately a romantic couple.

Honestly, I never felt the connection between them. I felt like their love story was kind of boring. I never found myself smiling at any of their interactions.

That being said, the first half of the book did have this bittersweet element that made you feel for them.

Then the second half of the book happened.

***minor spoilers ahead***

I've seen several reviews upset about the end of this book, specifically the 'twist'. But honestly? I realized where this book was going the moment Maddy did what she did halfway through the book. And I don't mean that to sound braggy. All I'm saying is that I felt like the way this book was structured (in first person from Maddy's perspective) made the 'twist' seem not that twisty to me. Now, that's not to say I enjoyed it. I thought it was actually kind of lazy writing. It almost felt like a bait and switch on the author's part. You think you're reading one kind of story most of the way through the book just to have it change completely in the last 50 pages. It felt like she had created this quirky love story but then couldn't figure out how to keep them together without changing the entire dynamic of their relationship.

Anyway, I didn't really think as much of this book as others seem to. I'm not sure why I can't fully enjoy this author's work. Maybe I'm just too old.