Nicole

I was actually really turned off by this at first, but it ended up being something special. I had read the Handmaid's Tale right before it and was therefore unacclimated to the grammar of contemporary fiction/romance, so that was jarring. Plus the whole spectacle about the grenade felt ridiculous. But that was nothing like the rest of the book. I cried at least 4 times. It really drags you down into the depths of grief. Not since the GOT series have I read a book with this much death in it.

This is a true romance book - no spice. Maybe like a bell pepper; that's it. It was heartwarming to read compared to other romance books I've encountered. It explored greater emotional depths than most books.

One of my major gripes about romance books was absent. I cannot stand when the entire plot of a book could be completely eliminated by people simply communicating. Yes, we had the thing Hugh literally refuses to tell Kate, but in doing so he's cluing her into what's going on with him even if he's not telling her the whole story. She does some mental inferring a few times, but ultimately asks him or brings things up, rather than continuing to spiral or act on her assumptions.

I also appreciated that people acted somewhat rationally. There were times when they couldn't/didn't do things because of various restraints that didn't just magically disappear. For the most part, I believed that people could actually do the things they did in the real world.

The distraction of the neighbor Justin in the beginning before pivoting to Hugh as the actual partner added something, too. Almost like as a reader, we didn't consider Hugh as a love interest, either.