First let me say, despite the fact that there was romance involved in this book, I would NOT classify this as a romance. That may just be me personally because I feel like the romance wasn’t the central takeaway for me with this. 

From the beginning, Eero was on my trashbag list. He didn’t appreciate Nicolette and treated her like dirt despite the fact that he kept saying he loved her. People make mistakes, but 10 years of mistakes?? Yeah okay. And as soon as his mistakes drove Nicolette into making her own, he flipped on her and acted as if she hadn’t been there for him and put up with his bs. So yeah, even though it was clear they were probably going to be endgame, I was not a fan.

At the same time, Nicolette had her own issues. Yes I wanted her to get her lick back an no I didn’t feel sorry for Eero when she did, but the way she was just willing to beg and plead for him to forgive her just didn’t sit right with me. I was glad she figured out how to stand on her own because the codependency these two had for each other was all types of unhealthy. 

Now her baby daddy? He can choke. I feel like he got off too easy after the way he acted.

Despite my dislike for Eero, I was so happy to see him get help in rehab. Having him go work on himself, start therapy, and continue therapy to deal with his childhood trauma was beautiful and honestly a bit of a saving grace for this story for me. 

Now here comes the other end of that: Nicolette never got the therapy she needed. It was mentioned time and time again that she wasn’t over her father leaving them for a whole new family. She clearly had abandonment issues, which contributed to her not only being codependent on Eero, but was also clearly the reason she allowed Eero to cheat on her and disrespect her for a decade. Why make that such a defining part of her character if we weren’t going to put in the effort to have it addressed and resolved. It felt like all the emphasis was out on Eero healing and becoming whole, it but it was halfway done with Nicolette. She would’ve really benefited from even going to a joint session with Eero. Her end of the story just felt unfinished. That’s especially true because at the end there’s a whole conversation about the half sister that wants to meet her and she’s rude and nasty to her, with no real resolution in sight. The story literally ends right after that interaction and people telling her that she needs to try and stop holding her feelings about her father against this girl who didn’t ask to be here and never did anything to her. Her response is literally “I just wanna be in a bubble with you Eero” and he’s like okay cool…

Like I said it just felt like an abrupt and unfinished ending. 

I will say I was glad that before the epilogue, Nicolette and Eero agree to take things slow with their relationship and get to know each other again. There was still some healing to be done (especially on Nicolette’s end). Obviously by the epilogue taking things slow is still only true in name only, but I appreciate the attempt lol. I can honestly say I would’ve been more receptive to them getting back together if a) the book had been longer or b) the premise had been split across two books so that we could really see the characters mature and develop with time.