Reviewed by readingwithwrin on
I went into this book with no expectations whatsoever, and I am really glad I did it that way.
Griffin is now dealing with the loss of his first love (Theo), the person he thought he was always going to be with, the one he had had all of his firsts with. Yes things had happened that had caused them to be apart, but he still believed they would get back together.
But things don't work out how he thought they would, and instead of seeing him again soon. It was seeing him again at his funeral, with his new boyfriend there as well. This makes for some awkward moments for both Griffin's parents and Theo's, and of course the new boyfriend (Jackson) was awkward to.
"He made me feel safe from the world, and made me feel safe from myself."
I'm not going to lie reading the funeral and several other parts of the book were extremely difficult to get through, because we could tell that Griffin was so in love with Theo and he was truly grieving. Silvera did a wonderful job of getting that across in a very few words as well as making the friends/family connections feels like you had know them for years as well.
As time goes on and Griffin and Jackson start spending time togethor we get to see not only the things Griffin did with Theo, but also the things Jackson had done with him to. We learned so much about all of them and how maybe things weren't as special to the other as they thought they were.
Honestly I really did like this book. The parents were so supportive of them and completely understood and had normal rules put in place.
The way Griffin dealt with his grief while not being in a healthy way, was something that is fairly normal for a lot of people sadly.
"Its what you do. Sorry, that sounds like you're a whore or something, that's not what I mean. you do things you know you shouldn't. It's like your wired to make mistakes when you're not in your 'best space' and it wasn't hard to guess that was going to happen."
His friendship with Wade while strained now, was nice as well considering they had been three best friends and then Griffin and Theo had started dating, which could have made everything weird, but it somehow didn't. Wade kept trying and kept being around when Griffin needed him and he was just a really good friend, who truly just wanted the best for Griffin.
When it came to dealing with other issues Griffin had though I felt like his parents did let them go on for a little to long, or maybe Griffin was just better at hiding it before Theo died.
SPOILER
Did anybody else think him and Wade were going to happen? Cause that was a big surprise to me. Was nice to see Griffin happy, just wasn't expecting it to be with Wade.
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Reading updates
- Started reading
- 17 March, 2017: Finished reading
- 17 March, 2017: Reviewed