This is a nearly five-star book that made me laugh and cry, I truly wanted to give it five stars. However, I had to take off 1 star for the

third-act breakup. This felt like a cheap way to drive conflict between Hart & Mercy. It didn't feel like a realistic reaction for Mercy to have. Why wouldn't she be thrilled to learn he was her pen-pal paramour? If Meg Ryan was jazzed that Tom Hanks, the person actually tring to put her out of business, was her chat room buddy, why wouldn't Mercy have had a relieved reaction to someone she loves who was helping her family's business stay afloat? Why wouldn't she understand that he'd be afraid to tell her the truth, based on their past conversations about his inability to say difficult things aloud to the people he loved the most? A more realistic way to drive this conflict - Hart could have just decided he was going to open the door, told Mercy, and she could have been more realistically upset since she had, ya know, expressly forbade him not to because she was worred about him dying.

I absolutely adored Megan Bannen's writing, worldbuilding, and character work. I'm so looking forward to the follow up novel about Twyla and Frank!