I know Cletus noticed Shelly had OCD in the last book, but I didn’t know quite how deep her mental health issues went. I’m glad we got to explore it in this book. I would say the book does a great job of exploring how Shelly struggles with her mental health and how it affects the relationships she has with people around her. It’s clear it’s caused a rift between her and her brother and nephew. It is one of the things Beau and her learn to overcome as their relationship grows. Her mental health isn’t romanticized and is shown to really be a stumbling block that she consistently has to work at in healthy ways such as going to therapy. I liked how it’s clear that if Beau is going to be in a relationship with Shelly he also must consistently be involved in her treatment because her OCD is a part of who she is and will always be there. I haven’t seen such a great depiction of a mental health issue in a book in a while and this was a breath of fresh air. I have friends that have anxiety disorders and this is really accurate as far as the way anxiety tends to make you rationalize irrational thoughts and fears.

I really enjoyed that Shelly was the one that took the initiative in her relationship with Beau. She came off very strongly, so I can understand why he was a bit hesitant about it at first. Shelly became attached to Beau reasonably quickly, but I think a large part of it is that he seemed so understanding of her as well because he’s a nice person. I can’t imagine that most people would have been as open to helping her speak to her therapist the way he did and even agree to accompany her to a session. I’m sure she wasn’t expecting their relationship to blossom quite the way that it did. People tend to perceive more attractive people as having their lives together and it seems that Beau is one of the few new people in Shelly’s life that saw her as more than just a pretty face. I appreciated being able to see Shelley and Beau grow to be able to work together efficiently not just within their romantic relationship but also as coworkers. It’s a good example of how people sometimes don’t just get along well at first and have to work a bit harder to get there. Both of them were bringing baggage into the relationship and were willing to work with the imperfections they saw in each other. At first I was slightly concerned that Shelley might become codependent on Beau due to her OCD, but I’m glad that he was able to be there as support rather than a crutch. It was also really cool to see such a talented female mechanic in action. Pretty and smart pretty much sums it up with Shelly. She is more than her looks and it was great that Beau eventually saw that despite his slip up on their first meeting. This was enjoyable to read and one of the best books in the series.