I understand what the author was trying to do here, but unfortunately it just didn't work for me.

First off, this relationship was suuuper insta-love, which I get was kind of the point (a fast, intense sort of relationship), but I never like that in stories, no matter if the romance is the focus (like in this book) or not. I like seeing things build up, or at least knowing that they built up at some point in the characters' background. Instead, these two literally fall in love at first sight, and big, important subjects (like marriage and the future) start coming up super fast. (Again, I understand that this is partially the point of the book, so I don't fault the book for it, but it added to why this book didn't work for me). On the other hand, other topics (such as where they lived/went to school?) didn't come up in the summer fling part of the relationship, and it felt like that was solely to make the fallout/disappearance possible, as well as the surprise reappearance.

While in the end this was far from just a romance book, I had a hard time with the romance in the beginning as well, which ended up impacting my overall opinion of the book regardless of how the story seemed to change at the end. Second chance romance is often a hit or miss with me, it has to be done well (like with Starry Eyes) for it to work for me. It didn't feel super well done here, and it ended up bugging me a lot. I also did not like that only after they finally reconnected it was suddenly revealed that Ashton has a girlfriend now? It was resolved quickly but I hate when the romance of the book can only proceed by destroying a different relationship (where the third party is entirely innocent). It just makes me feel, icky, honestly.

Besides all that though, I feel like this book touches on a lot of important subjects (privilege, race, mental illness), and it has a lot of rep within it (that I can't personally review), such as a biracial MC (where this is a topic touched on multiple times within the story) as well as a character struggling with depression. Overall, I do feel this book comments on a lot of important subjects, but the rest of the story didn't feel well-done to me.