I have so many emotions and thoughts going through me that I can’t even put them into words. I was taken away by the first book but this sequel just took it to a whole new level. It brought in a new perspective of how important it is to surround yourself with people who love and understand you. How important it is to be your true self because otherwise, you are just living a life that’s a lie, a life that is making both you and others around you unhappy. 

In the book, I already knew that I related to Ari. That his struggles were essentially my own struggles that I’ve been aware of over the last few months/years. Yet in this book, we really saw Ari’s character development and just how hard it is to grow up in a world that has so much hatred in it. While I was reading I just kept taking pictures and underlining so many passages because it felt like a direct look into my life. Like so much that one of the conversations Ari had with his friends I had with a friend a day before I got to the part. So I realized that we are essentially living the same life. But his character development was just written so beautifully. It wasn’t just him getting better and better, he had his moments where we went back down. And that’s how life is. High moments are followed by low moments and low moments are followed by high. I also love how it was shown that trauma can cause you to forget things at times. To not remember things but in bits and pieces. 

It also made me realize in said low moments, shutting myself out from everyone I know isn’t helping anyone. That being surrounded by love and reminders of how these moments will pass makes the biggest difference. This story does such a wonderful job of reminding you that teenagers are stupid but also they are the only ones who can do anything. Even when you don’t agree, it’s around that time when you discover who you are and what you want to be. And no one excepts that to be easy.

Also seeing how Ari dealt with the loss of his father and how that shaped him meant so much to me as I just experienced so much loss in my life. And seeing how he dealt with it, the words he used, and how he realized that living in the past and being consumed by sadness isn't helping anyone. That we have to keep moving forward and live for them instead was so personal to me and I loved it.

The friendships shown here also show that you cannot always know what’s going on in others' minds, but they will be there in times of need. That your friends will know what you need even if you don’t know it.

Just seeing Ari take control of his life and seeing his friendship with Cassandra was also one of my favorites as it showed that she was the friend who never pushed and cared. She understood him on a deeper level without having to talk and physically say something so special and I want that.

I just really love seeing this and made me realize how much my friends actually mean to me and how much of a difference they made in my life.