✏️ Written on the younger side of YA, even though main character is 18
📧 Multimedia snippets including emails, texts, and diagrams
✨ Even though this book features a main character with SCID, don’t look for representation (spoilers for more information)
♥️ Sweet romance, although it is a bit weird (bunt cake I’m looking at you)
📖 Loved that there were mini book reviews throughout
🎬 Didn’t love the ending (spoiler section)

I’d recommend this book to anyone wanting a flashback to the John Green and Rainbow Rowell era of YA I know it was written in 2015). I’ll be watching the movie later because I think this story has great potential in movie form.

Okay, I hated the ending for multiple reasons. The first is I think it could be damaging to those reading for the SCID rep. Other “sick kid” books I’ve read give respect to the lifestyle of the sick and make the romance work around it. Risks are taken and adolescent feelings are involved, but there’s still respect there. I had a problem with the author writing it out. Instead of making the romance work despite the SCID, the disease was removed. The big plot twist where Maddy wasn’t really sick made my heart sink because can you imagine what someone with SCID would think? I don’t have SCID so I don’t want to put words into anyone’s mouth, but if I read a book that I deeply identified with, only to have a large connecting piece be false… I’d feel cheated. Yes, it still gives representation because you see the life she lived before the twist, but I don’t like that the only way the author saw this romance working was to remove the illness. People with SCID can’t remove theirs.

Also, I think it’s lazy writing. I can picture her trying to plot this book and racking her brain for a feasible way to make this romance work, finally landing on the easiest way to go. I also hate mental illness being used as a plot device. There are plenty of grief stricken parents who don’t fake illnesses and impose them on their children.

But I do have to remember that not only was this written in 2015, but it was also her debut novel.