I had amazingly high expectations for this. Maybe that’s what made it such a let down? I had built it up so much in my head because I’ve loved a couple of Renee’s books I’m the past but maybe I just need to accept that her newer books just don’t do it for me.

The writing was good as ever, but I despised the characters. I couldn’t like them...

After sleeping on it, I realised just how much potential this book had. An unrequited love traveling through decades? Watching the one you love get married, have a child and move on with their life whilst you’re seemingly stood still? That’s the kind of plot that I’d love to read about and a brilliant character driven story. But it just didn’t live up to its expectation and felt very stale — it feels like a lot of new adult authors are releasing books like this lately (either that or I’ve just read a lot of them lately), and it just feels unremarkable. There wasn’t a plot either, really, so it was hard to remain engaged in a story that had both unlikeable characters and a non existent plot.

To be honest, I loved this book up until around page 70. And then something just clicked inside my head and I couldn’t do it anymore. I carried on reading and read every single word in order to give the book a very fair chance but it just didn’t redeem itself.

Big spoilers ahead:

At one point, we turn back the time to 14 years ago and see a disgruntled Gavin learning that his true love (though he’s always forgetting to meet her, being snarky with her, and downright lying about his feelings) is actually pregnant with Lance’s child. He goes nuts. His first reaction is to tell her that she’s to get an abortion and that he’ll pay for it. He goes on, and on, and on about an abortion being the only option. She thinks it may be a sign of fate and he immediately shrugs that off, shaming her and telling her that it can’t be and she needs to get an abortion. He won’t accept the fact that she wants a child, and tries to control her life. What sort of person does that?!

There’s also a point wherein Gavin is leaving Penny’s house. Lance is standing nearby, and Gavin leans in and says “you’ll be thinking of me when you fuck him later”. This guy is grade A twisted. Honestly, I cannot stand him. It was uncomfortable, and downright frightening in some places.

Gavin actually goes to France and marries a woman who he doesn’t love - in fact he hates her - and spends the entire time talking to Penny about how much he hates her, how everything she does gets on his nerves... but then when Penny tries to discuss her marriage issues — like the way best friends do, which Gavin claims they are — he won’t hear any of it. And then when Penny does mention herself or her life, he goes off and screams at her telling her how self centred she is (which is how the novel starts). So, my problem is that Gavin is inherently self centred and doesn’t appear to actually love or care for Penny. He is rarely, if ever, there for her. For example: Penny’s Dad passes away and Gavin never bothers to come and see her. Penny stands outside waiting when he was due to pick her up, and he never shows. So she’s stood with a severely damaged knee (after a dancing injury with a douchebag), freezing cold having sunk into grief. And he leaves her?! But when she calls him out, he’s nasty again. He’s not a nice person at all, much less is he the kind of person you’d choose to marry. So when the inevitable happened and they fell in love or whatever that was, I found myself feeling angry rather than what I assume we were meant to feel; love, joy, happiness... the usual things I’d feel with an ending like this.

In a nutshell: I found this uncomfortable, dissatisfying and angering. But that’s just me and the way I’ve taken it. Please remember that books are subjective.