There was some potential at the beginning of this story. The tender moments between Elliot and Macy, while a little cringe at points, had heart. The love story between the FMC mother and father, and the way they fumbled to heal after the death of her mother felt real.

What ironically ruined it was the way that we progressed into the relationship.

The novel spends its time alternating chapters between the present and past, but it felt like the authors would have rather enjoyed spending time in the past. I question why this was an adult, second chance novel when the times spent with Macy as an adult were painfully underdeveloped. We never learn who Macy is outside of her obsession with Elliot and her hatred of other girls that are "skanks" and "sluts." We never learn why Macy is obsessed with Elliot beyond him getting suddenly hot at seventeen and his love of pretentious books.

Any side characters involved were hollow shells, included simply to drive the plot along.

The ending really ruined it for me. I was already not enjoying myself, and then at the 90% mark, we finally get to know what caused the big rift between our couple. The decidedly flippant and dismissive way that the MMC's assault is handled absolutely disgusted me. Instead of spending pages and pages talking about underage sex these two had, we could have spent time to allow both characters to digest what was really happening. But no, we are rushed into a very HEA in less than 50 pages.

If this were my first book by this author, I would never touch another one of their works again.