When Isamu Miura returns home on medical discharge from the military, he finds his childhood best friend busy with a new relationship, and his father packing up to return to Japan. With only Inu, his trusted service dog, left at his side, he plans to outfit a camper van to travel across the country. There’s just one problem. The only guy in town who can help wants nothing to do with him, his dog, or his dreams. Unlike Isamu, John Love doesn't consider himself a dreamer. A car accident took his mother way too soon, and he has all but lost his father to alcoholism. All he wants is to work his mechanic job to pay for school and leave everything else behind. Adding more work by helping out Isamu is the last thing he wants. When a friend convinces John to take the job, will he find something, or someone, worth dreaming for? Only if Isamu can prove that John is more than just a pit stop on everyone else’s path.
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I want to start off by saying that this book does get a little heavy in terms of themes, but not in the 'let's include it for angst sake'. Everything had a reason behind it and it was essentially the "conflict" for the two MCs. The story focused more on the character development to progress the plot which I think was done really well!
Overall the representation was really throughout and put together with care. Ellis really did their best to represent different demographics and not stereotype/tokenize them. We don't see a lot of mental and physical disability rep either with such a diverse cast either. Props for that!
The pacing felt a bit jumpy at times because it is a really quick read, however, I think we did get an even amount of time to sit with each POV per chapter. With heavy themes like racism, bigotry, PTSD and alcoholism, I can see this not being everyone's favorite plot points as they do take president and not everyone likes to read about minority groups suffering. Doesn't mean we should ignore it or the truth behind the history though. They're very real things.
Ellis does give a nice trigger warning at the beginning and there is a sort of bittersweet happy ending which leaves rooms for hopeful feelings in readers. At least it did for me.
A really well done story with much needed representation 🧡
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