4 ✨ I initially had very conflicting feelings about this book, and I think most of that came from my expectations. I went in thinking I was getting a romance, but this felt much more like a story about relationships and trauma - how people cope (often in unhealthy ways), how it impacts everyone around them, and how small mistakes can snowball into something you can't always come back from.

From that perspective, it was really interesting, and I ended up feeling for all the characters - even Mike. I know the next book is about him, and I realised that usually when a character has messed up in the past, we just hear about it second-hand. Here, we actually see it happen and witness the impact it has on everyone around him. His conversation with Chris on the bench made me cry 😭.

This might get a bit spoilery, but I did feel uncomfortable with what was happening between Chris and Larissa. It crossed into emotional cheating pretty quickly, and I wasn't a fan of Chris dating someone else to "get over" Larissa - it just felt really unfair to Heather. The ending also felt a bit too idealistic to me. Maybe I'm just too cynical hahah, but I feel like in real life, situations like this would unfortunately completely break friend groups apart.

I do think the book did a great job showing the fine line between supporting a friend and enabling their self-destructive behaviour. Things probably wouldn't have escalated the way they did if Mike had been honest and allowed himself to be vulnerable with Chris and Larissa. And if Chris hadn't kept covering for him - like Chris said, he thought he was helping carry the weight, but in the end, he was just preventing Mike from dealing with it himself and confusing Larissa as well, because we found out that all the things that kept pulling her to Mike were a result of Chris's behaviour.

Overall, this was a very different read than I expected. Good for what it was, but I wouldn’t really categorise it as a romance. And at this point, I’m starting to think there isn’t a single Abby Jimenez book that doesn’t make me cry 😭 😂

3.5✨ This was definitely more interesting than the first book in the series, but I can't shake the feeling that it's basically a mix of all the most popular romantasy tropes thrown together.

I was actually surprised when it ended because it felt like… wait, that's it?

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON They run away from Ellow, hang out with new people, her sister gets taken, they go back to Ellow to warn about the war, "mate mate mate", argue with the king, she gets taken. The end.

5 ✨ An abused and traumatised girl chooses a very… extreme form of therapy as a last resort… and somehow ends up healing, finding peace, and even true love? I ate it up.