I agree with others I know when they said they think this shows a lot of writing growth from Ali, especially compared to her previous books. It kind of stepped away from her standard formula, which I definitely appreciated. I enjoyed the emphasis on mental health, trust between partners, and loyalty to friends. 

I did get frustrated with the often significant

self-flagellation and what I perceived to be some kind of self-manipulation behavior — like how often Scarlett put Pen’s feelings and past relationship with Lukas before her own feelings/behavior, almost granting Pen some sort of continued ownership to Lukas even though they were clearly broken up. It could also be the age of the characters too. I also felt like that random periods of no communication between Lukas and Scarlett weren’t explained quite to my satisfaction, but whatever.

 

I still haven’t read Ali’s last book (Not in Love) because I was just kind of tired of the same thing on repeat. But this definitely changed the game a bit. For me, it didn’t have the addictive quality her books have had in the past, but I’ve been struggling to find that lately, so maybe that’s more of a me thing than a book thing.