(I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)

This is a sweet, warmhearted and thoroughly satisfying story about love, friendship, family, the way life gets in the way of your plans, and losing the things you dreamed of only to get what you didn't know you needed. It shows that things don't have to turn out just the way you wanted them to to turn out really well, and that you can find people you love and things you're passionate about just about anywhere if you're prepared to look.

I loved Sam's character. She's kind, funny, brilliant, oblivious and utterly adorkable. Her strengths and weaknesses were two sides of the same coin (she's very smart, a talented medical researcher, a high achiever and proud of it, and willing to sacrifice for those she loves, and at the same time a bit of an intellectual snob, prone to overanalysing everything and she tends to make herself miserable over those she cares for). I related to her a lot, and her complicated feelings for Natalie, Maria, and her mother really resonated. Towards the start of the book, there was a moment where I went "Seriously? Who actually talks like this?", before realising "... I do. I talk like this, with the odd formality and advanced vocabulary that comes out when I'm feeling awkward or especially uninhibited".

If I had one complaint, it's that this book has the very common problem where nobody says the 'b' word. Natalie has always known she likes boys, then discovers she likes girls too, but the word bisexual is never even mentioned (while the words 'lesbian' and 'gay' appear many times throughout the book). And I think it's a bit unfortunate that Natalie - change-her-major-a-million-times, ever-shifting-fashion-sense, probably-never-going-to-settle-down Natalie - was the only character to demonstrate attraction to more than one gender, considering the stereotype of bisexuals as indecisive and unsuited for commitment. I don't want to sound more negative than I really feel, though. I truly appreciated the lack of biphobia, in that Sam was never confused about how Natalie could be genuinely attracted to people of more than one gender or upset with Natalie for dating boys, she was only ever upset that Natalie wasn't dating her.

Overall, I loved it. ( )

That was cool. Like I'm finding a lot of the Ylva books it was a total and utter slow burn, but good.

The reader gets a little bit of the 'after' right at the beginning of the novel and then we go back in Sam's story a little bit. She's the main character and the book, while it did have other characters, mostly revolved around her and her story.

We start with her in her first dorm meeting as a freshman at Yale. She starts as a super introvert with iffy socialization skills. But she meets some people like a girl she likes, Natalie, as well as some other friends too.

We follow her through Semester after Semester (and summers too) as she grows, changes, and such and then we get jerked out of Sam's Academic world and back into the small town of Stowe Vermont where Sam grew up.

That was my favorite part of the novel. Perhaps it was because I live in New England, but I thought that the author did a good job giving the sense of place for Vermont and that part of the novel's slow burn didn't drive me quite as crazy as the beginning part of the novel.

I liked this book. It was a heartwarming story and there were even some mostly proper uses of wicked in it too.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of Ylva Publishing. ( )

This book makes it not easy to get a feeling for the characters. They are rather stereotypical and... well... If you introduce a character (Samantha by the way) as socially awkward, then show her that way? I don't think of her as socially awkward. The big and many time jumps didn't help either.

After finishing I still don't know why Sam is in love with Natalie. Seriously, why? It didn't make sense and there wasn't any chemistry between them.

Part two contains the changes for Sam - I seriously thought the whole book would be about them and what'll happen after dealing/learning to live with them, but the reader experiences Sam's college life, too. Anyway, this part was better. The characters were interesting (I especially love Pauly) and Sam herself makes more sense in my eyes.

It still feels kinda unfinished. Not because of the open end, but because there were some things introduced but nothing really came out of it (Sam's poetry for example).

If the description would have been different, maybe I wouldn't have been as bored while reading. Because what you read there? That's the book. It's more of a summary than a description, I think.

Disclaimer: I was provided by Ylva Publishing with a free copy in exchange for an honest review. Thank you. ( )