Thank you to Random House/Delacorte Press for an e-arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

it's been quite a while since i've read a kasie west work, so evidently i was intrigued to see how her new one would go and if things had changed from her stories my younger self consumed. flew through this story within give or take two hours and i can say i was left wishing there was more written to the simons and hutton families' story. norah and skyler were the perfect set up to the childhood friends to lovers along with the plus of their families being close with their mothers being best friends since college yet didn't get to live up to their potential. it's definitely a personal preference but i would have preferred things to be more drawn out between those two estranged best friends with a bit more angst, but how things were resolved between them made sense on skyler's side. i do wish the characters weren't so two-dimensional, skyler was the only one not really lacking for me and even so, we didn't really get more information on how he worked past his issues on his dad. the side plot of norah being nosy into what the moms were hiding i feel like was just there to add some intrigue, and again even when that was revealed not more of the story came together with it.

that being said i was honestly let down by the ending, just felt not just abrupt but lacking on that depth was needed with the bonds between the families and seeing how norah and skyler worked through things after that last chapter. like west tried tying it all together too fast for my liking. apart from all this, some aspects i did enjoy was seeing both kids of the families bond, norah and skyler's love for art, and particularly a trope between two side characters that i suspected in the beginning and was pleased to see that my suspicions were correct. so sadly this was not my favorite kasie west work, disappointing since i remember enjoying some of her other works just a few years back.