Started: July 1st
Finished: July 6th
TSM Rating: 5/5

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and I wasn’t disappointed.

I’m going to be honest, I loved Shane instantly, but it took awhile for Lilah to grow on me. She was such a frustrating character to root for. And this is coming from someone who can get lost in her own mind and feelings from time to time.

These two had such an epic meet cute at the beginning. Eyes meeting across a room, instant “this-one-is-going-to-be-different” attraction.

She realized belatedly that she’d gone too long staring at him without saying anything. He was still watching her, the corner of his mouth quirking up in amusement. Dimple, she thought stupidly, involuntarily.

WTOWT, pg. 10

Then a slow burn get together that goes down in flames. Which for most relationships is just the end, but the rebuilding of that fire from the cinder was epic. Ava Wilder really makes you work for their reconnection. She makes them work for it.

It would have been so easy for her to have these two characters fall right back into bed with angry, hateful sex right at the beginning, but that’s not what this couple is about. That first meeting was epic and life altering. It’s not something you want to mess up twice.

While Lilah is tough and emotionally reserved, Shane is softer and kinder, and emotionally available. He’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, his reaction to Lilah abruptly dumping him was immature at best. Most of his actions come from a place of hurt and fear.

What Ava Wilder does best with this and her first novel, How to Fake it in Hollywood, is building the anticipation and allowing her character space to grow and work on their flaws.

She suddenly understood, with a nauseating surge or regret, what a precious thing she’d been so careless with all those years ago, too blinded by distrust and self-loathing to see it standing right in front of her, if only been brave enough to reach for it.

WTOWT, pg. 182

I enjoyed this book so much. It was totally worth the wait.