Chelsea's Adventures in Book Blogging...

I'm thinking this is a 3.5. I loved the beginning of the book. It was fun and felt wistful reading about Alix & Nick growing up together. It was interesting reading about their coming of age. I love that Nick's brand of romance is so subtle; he's not spewing in-your-face pick up lines or sappy poems, he just makes simple comments that make your heart flutter. Throughout the whole first part of the book, however, there are these foreboding paragraphs at the end of practically every chapter. They completely ruined the mood. An example from page 41: "But there are more kinds of hurt than physical ones, hurts that run ever deeper and leave bigger scars, and not even Nick could protect me from himself." It had already happened enough by that point I noted "a little thick on the foreboding." I read the synopsis, I know the shit's going to hit the fan. You needn't remind me every chapter that it's coming. The second part of the book is post shit-hitting-the-fan, if you will. The thing that's keeping this book from 4 stars is the detached way it's written. The entire book is written in the past tense, almost as if the narrator is looking back at the end of their life, when they've gained perspective & nothing feels as sharp as it had when it occurred. This is a beautiful, poignant, powerful story. I identified with and loved the characters. I'm a complete sucker & will bawl if I'm really wrapped up in a story, and I just wasn't wrapped up in this, despite all the potential to be.So, yes, 3.5. It was lovely, original story. This could be a fun book club read, there are lots of themes that it would be fun to discuss.