The teacher in me *loved* the FMC, Sam. A librarian who fights to help her students get to experience the best version of school possible? Icon. And I loved the way she was able to sneakily get Duncan back to his old self and help him heal from the darkness he was dealing with.

But I have a few things that stopped this from being a 5⭐️ read for me. First, Katherine Center has her main characters saying they love each other after hanging out some and kissing like twice. And while spending time together is an important component of that, we don’t see all of it, so it feels inauthentic. Also, kissing someone twice doesn’t seem like enough to get someone to fall in love, no matter how much they had crushes on each other in a past experience with each other.

TW: school shooting.
Also, the back story for Duncan is DARK. I was shocked. And then the plot became a lot more about that, which was kinda tough to read as a teacher who has struggled with the reality of that their entire career. So that was just a lot to walk into.

But overall, the town and its characters were so special. And I loved that Alice and Babette wouldn’t let Sam not be with Duncan. We basically avoided a 3rd act breakup.

P.S. I want more from Katherine’s epilogues. Like this is true for all of her books. They all are about lessons learned and I want all the tea about how/what the couple did after the fully got together.