“In the tradition of Sarah Dessen, this powerful debut novel is a compelling portrait of a young girl coping with her mother’s cancer as she figures out how to learn from—and fix—her past.

Few things come as naturally to Harper as epic mistakes. In the past year she was kicked off the swim team, earned a reputation as Carson High’s easiest hook-up, and officially became the black sheep of her family. But her worst mistake was destroying her relationship with her best friend, Declan.

Now, after two semesters of silence, Declan is home from boarding school for the summer. Everything about him is different—he’s taller, stronger…more handsome. Harper has changed, too, especially in the wake of her mom’s cancer diagnosis.

While Declan wants nothing to do with Harper, he’s still Declan, her Declan, and the only person she wants to talk to about what’s really going on. But he’s also the one person she’s lost the right to seek comfort from.

As their mutual friends and shared histories draw them together again, Harper and Declan must decide which parts of their past are still salvageable, and which parts they’ll have to let go of once and for all.

In this honest and affecting tale of friendship and first love, Emily Martin brings to vivid life the trials and struggles of high school and the ability to learn from past mistakes over the course of one steamy North Carolina summer.”

I started reading this while at my friend’s cabin on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. The cabin was warm and cozy, and the view of the water was gorgeous. (As you can see above).

I was drawn into this book right away, maybe because my friends and I were talking a lot that weekend about our high school experiences/our pasts, so the idea of a character wrestling with the mistakes of her past, and trying to figure out if she could fix them while also working through current problems, really resonated at the moment.

“Tracing the infinity pendant on my necklace, I wonder where the invisible line is. The line that determines which parts of our past as still close enough to go back and fix, and which parts we have to live with forever.”

♥ Harper: I really loved Harper. I don’t know if I would say that I identified with her, but Idefinitely could relate to the experience of losing a really important friend, like the friend she lost when her and Declan broke up. Harper is so, so flawed. She keeps making stupid mistakes, but she was also working through some really tough things; her mom has cancer, her ex-boyfriend/best friend is back in town, and her best friend does nothing but encourage her self-destructive coping tactics. That being said, she grows so much as a character, and I loved how transparently we got to know her.

♥ The Romance: I LOVED DECLAN. Like, honestly, he is so sweet. I’m a sucker for childhood best friend turned boyfriend romances, and this one was no different. I thought it was interesting how the story was primarily about her getting back to how it was between them and fixing her mistakes of the past, but the majority of the book was not romantic/between Declan and Harper. At the same time, it did feel like the romancewas a big part of it, and I liked how it was handled and resolved in the end. It was super sweet.

“Declan’s fingers graze my collarbone and grasp the chain of my necklace. He pulls it out from underneath my shirt and slides down to the infinity pendant at the bottom before letting go. ‘I know who you are.'”

♥ Family: I am also someone who loves stories that involve familial relationships. The aspect of cancer in the family, and how this changes dynamics and relationships, was one that I am familiar with, and though was very well written. I loved Harper’s family, and I liked how they were as much a part of the story as the other characters. 

♥ I loved how Emily Martin wrote a story about a girl who has some-what shitty people in her life, and who makes a lot of awful choices, but is still presented as a wonderfully flawed, lovely person. I love flawed characters.
♥ Slut Shaming: Can I just give Emily Martin a standing ovation for the way that she dealt with slut shaming and rape culture?! I was amazed at how directly, and perfectly, this subject was addressed– it is something the MC deals with A LOT, and I loved that she began to stand up for herself and stand up against slut shaming in general. Well done, seriously.

“He said it like it was nothing. That’s what always gets me– how everyone can act like that kind of slut-shaming is no big deal”

* I would have liked more to the resolution in the end, because while the romantic relationship issues were fully resolved, the conflicts and situations with some of the friends and family were kind of left unaddressed in the end. I loved basically all of the main and side characters and their story lines, so I wanted just a little more in the end I guess? But in general I don’t think that means it was a bad ending, I just loved it a lot and would like to know more about the characters and their lives!

 I would recommend this to fans of contemporary YA like Sarah Dessen, Emma Mills, and Morgan Matson.

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS!