This book! I was so unprepared to love this book and feel like I did while reading it!

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After the last Colleen Hoover book I read I questioned if I would like any of her work. I figured maybe the Slammed trilogy and the Hope book were awesome flukes and as time progressed her work got....eh-ish. Man was I WRONG.

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I started this book as an audiobook. I was listening while I worked, and it was so good I had to download it at home and finish it immediately!

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This book is filled with beautiful quotes, important lessons, and a deep rawness.

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Going into the book I didn't have any clue what it was about except a marriage in trouble. Once I realized what was going on I had a freak out moment, because God seems to be playing with me these days. (A lot of ironic things surrounding this topic has been happening in my life lately.) If I was home I probably would have stopped and picked a different book, but I didn't have the time to find a new book and download it so I stuck with it.

 

This book caused so many feelings to fill me up. The intense struggle to be happy because you're disappointed in yourself and you feel like everyone else is disappointed in you too hurts. The fact that Quinn felt she was disappointing the man she loves hurts even worse. How difficult life had to be for her to go around thinking that if she let him go he would have a happier life, weighed on her shoulders daily. (This was hard for me to read because once again it relates so much to my life, and to someone I love so much.)

 

Overtime wanting a baby was no longer something she just desired for the two of them. It became her needing a baby for her marriage to survive. Quinn believed that if she couldn't provide a baby for Graham then she'd have to let him go. Then she'd be all alone and he could live a life with a woman he'd love and a baby of his own. Because Quinn was so focused on what she thought was 'wrong' with her, she thought everyone else focused on it as well and that she was a burden. (Lets remember that fortune right now.)

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Quinn brought up something that my mom and I discussed this week in the hospital. Why do people who don't want or deserve babies get them so easily, and why do good people who want babies desperately struggle so much or be unable to have them? Thanks to this being so personal to things going on in my family currently, I was right there with Quinn. Why? It's incredibly unfair. My mom and I just shook our heads and tried to avoid the subject so we wouldn't cry. Life makes us go through hardships at times to teach us things. Quinn had a stiff mother to attempt discussing the subject with and I just wish she would have let it out with Graham sooner. Life is difficult and we can't control it all of the time. Sometimes we just have to accept what we are handed and do the best we can with it.

 

Going through the flashbacks to Now drove me mad! I loved seeing them fall in love, but man when things were intense I just wanted to know what was happening immediately!

 

When Graham answered with a name I had to pause and gasp aloud. I was truly shocked. I couldn't believe he would actually do something like that at all, especially to Quinn. The entire situation was very painful, it was like there was a physical weight on my chest. I felt like everything was over then. I was so ANGRY. Cheating is something I find unforgivable. How could he do that after the way they met? He knew how devasting cheating on felt. The fact that he admitted he would have continued and probably never of told her if he hadn't been caught felt like I was STABBED. I'm thankful he was honest enough to admit it, but holy crap that hurt.

 

For Quinn to be faced with that was painful. She had every right to be mad, but then she felt guilt at being faced with her own mistakes. She realized she had a role in their marriage being so damaged as well. They both messed up along the way and it made them continue to fall more downhill. They shouldn't have kept secrets from each other, it was hard to share their pain because they didn't want to burden the other, and with that build up it became impossible for them to be happy, honest, or real with each other.

 

When they found out about the miscarriage I hurt for them. They were going through the worst thing imaginable already, and then they had a wrench thrown in. They were faced with so much heartache, and it felt like death in the moment but it helped them come out stronger.

 

The thing with the box had me a worried mess. I could not think of what it was. I was guessing pictures of a baby they lost? Prenups? Divorce papers? I had no idea. I was unprepared for what it was. When I realized what they were fixing to be faced with I was in awe and crying. The idea is beautiful and smart. Sometimes in the moments of anger and hurt and the Category 5's, it becomes difficult to remember the good moments. Without remembering the moments that matter, it makes those difficult moments seem like they are being done for something you don't care to fight for. THE GOOD MOMENTS MATTER. They are the thing that carries everything. Without any good moments no one would find life worth doing. (To be honest I really wanna do this when I get married, but I worry that looks like I'm thinking the marriage wouldn't survive sooooo we shall see.)

 

This book taught so many important life lessons. Marriage is hard. It's not easy. It's a bunch of fun times with moments of difficulty that feel like they last forever when they are really just a blip in a blissful life with someone you love. You have to be able to fight and not lose sight of what you are fighting for.

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I was so relieved that after Quinn read the letters, she was able to see that she was the most important thing to Graham. She was the one thing that truly mattered to him. Not a baby. It makes the note situation that much smarter, because sometimes it's hard to say what you want. It's difficult to get the words out, and it's difficult to hear. No one wants to sit and pour the hurt out in fear of what they will face. And the person on the receiving end doesn't want to sit and listen, they want to fight and interrupt. This causes a million issues that don't need to be there. That's what makes the letters such a smart thing, because letters allow you to pour your heart out and more, and it gives each person space to read it on their own and react. (I have always enjoyed writing letters, but I only do it to people I really care for because they always make me spill everything. That's it I've decided I'm definitely doing letters. And I'm gonna do a jar of happy moments. The sappy romanticness ah.)

 

The ending was perfection. They got a do-over. They get a chance to change their mistakes and to grow from them. (I was sad they left behind Graham's family and the nieces especially, but at least they get Ava and Reid.)

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The entire book was just perfect. I feel everyone should read it. It is one I am going to remember for a very long time and think back on. I haven't had a book do that to me in a while, and I'm so happy to have experienced it. I am very thankful to Colleen for sharing it with us. 10 out of 10 brilliant stars.

 

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