I loved Sonia Hartl's debut, Have a Little Faith in Me, and was so excited to read her sophomore follow up. And it was awesome. Like, I probably won't be able to put into words how completely I fell in love with this thing, but I'll go ahead and give it a shot.
- ►Gotta admit, I was in love with the characters from the actual first chapter. No lie, first note I made on my phone. That is remarkable, frankly, because usually it takes me a hot second to warm up. But nope. And while I absolutely adore Macy, the whole gang was perfect. From Macy's friends to her family, they were just *chef's kiss*.
- ►Speaking of family, can we talk about how awesome Macy's was? It's a three-generational household full of the best, feistiest, badassiest women ever. Macy's mom had her very young (and fine, maybe I had a wee mental breakdown over the fact that a parent in a YA book was younger than me, but shh), but the book totally shatters "teen mom" stereotypes because Macy's mom is the best. And yeah sometimes she's worried that Macy will repeat her mistakes, but that feels only natural! And don't even get me started on my love for Macy's grandma! She has a quilting group and they are an absolute riot. She reminded me of my grandma, also my mom's mom (who incidentally was also a teen mom and rocked it), and I miss her so much, this just warmed my heart.
- ►It's super sex-positive, and full of feminist messages. I mean, what else is there to say, it's perfect!
- ►The romance owned me. Truly, the love interest was kind of awesome. I am a complete sucker for the nice guy (who is an actual nice guy) and this whole romance was awesome.
- ►Macy's friends were fabulous too. Like I want to hang out with them too! And frankly, I was so glad that Macy had so, so many amazing people in her corner, because she deserved it.
- ►The whole "viral meet-cute" was a complete comedy of errors, in the best way. I cackled, not going to lie, because it was just so.... honest. This is absolutely the kind of absurdity you'd find on the internet, especially social media, and I think that it's also a good message about the perils of getting too caught up in views and followers and such.
Bottom Line: I truly don't have the words to express how much this book owns my heart. But it does, so you should give it a go.