⭐️ 4.75 stars. I didn’t expect this book to stay with me the way it has. It wasn’t a perfect book, and it’s definitely not for everyone, but it hit me deeply and is gonna stay forever with me that’s for sure. The heart of the story is Georgia. She’s one of the most layered FMCs I’ve ever read. I didn’t fully relate to her, but there were moments where I could really see myself in her. The way she questions her worth, in the way she longs for love that feels safe, in the way she tries to stand up for herself in a world that constantly tests her. And so much more.Georgia is the reason this story will live with me forever. Sam Penny… I get the hype now, though he isn’t my favorite book boyfriend. What I love about him isn’t just who he is, but what he represents for Georgia. He gives her the one thing no one else ever did: boundaries. He refuses to let people talk to her like she’s worthless, and he shows her that she deserves love that doesn’t come with cruelty attached. He’s not perfect, but he’s perfect for her. Now, the family. Oh my god, the family. I hated Marianne with my whole soul. I hated Oliver almost as much. The excuses, the betrayals, the way they crushed Georgia over and over again made me so angry. And yet, the portrayal felt real. Jessa Hastings wrote these characters so layered, so human, that I couldn’t ignore them — even when I despised them. The only family member I ended up appreciating was her older brother Tennyson, who grew on me with his quiet attempts to make things right. The writing itself is beautiful. The quotes? Stunning. Hastings has a way of weaving words that linger. She also gave Georgia this skill of “reading people” — something she studies and practices. It added such a unique perspective to the story, making every interaction feel raw and real, even without other POVs. Why not five stars? A few reasons: the romance leaned a bit too insta-lovey for my taste (and that’s one trope I usually can’t stand). Hastings wrote it well enough that I eventually went along with it, but it still pulled me out at times. And then there’s the fact that, as much as I loved Georgia, I spent the majority of this book feeling angry — at her family, at their cruelty, at how people can mistreat someone just because they can. It’s powerful, but it left me emotionally drained. At its core, though, this book is about something I think is really important: learning that it’s okay to let go of family if they’re toxic. It’s okay to choose peace, even if that means stepping away from the people who should’ve loved you most. And sometimes, the family you build for yourself matters more than the one you’re born into. Georgia will stay with me for a long, long time. “We walk a few blocks in silence and even still, all things about this night and day considered, I like the silence with Sam Penny. I like silence with most people, actually, but I like it with Sam for a different reason.With everyone else, I like their silence because it talks to me. I trust people’s silences more than their words. I can read the world in silence.But Sam is different. Silence with him is silence. Silence with him is five fifteen in the morning before the sun's up and it's still dark but the birds are singing. He's the heavy quilt you pull over your head when it's too cold and too early to wake up. He's the song no parent ever loved me enough to sing. He's the way water runs and bubbles over stones in a stream. He's a quiet mind” “She's frozen up the way some people do around death. It’s a natural fear I get it . All humans, whether they know it or not, are profoundly impacted by their imminent deaths. Mortality unbearably confronting, so much so that lots of people spend their whole lives trying to live as though it doesn't chain them like it does the rest of us. We do all these things to avoid the ephemeralness of ourselves and the people we form attachment bonds with around us, but ther's nothing any of us can do about it... One day I'll die. One day you will.” “You can tell yourself you don't even really want to be wanted by people like them anyway, but it isn't true because the same way parents are supposed to want their kids, kids have a genetic predisposition to want to be wanted by them. I mightn't like my parents, I mightn't like what they stand for or what they've done or how they've behaved, but they're my parents and they sent us both away because we weren't like them. That pulls a number on your psyche when you're growing.”