This book was interesting and emotional on many different levels. Bex comes from a wealthy family, the homelife isn’t bad, it’s just nonexistent and after what happens at the very beginning my heart did hurt for her to some extent. She makes questionable decisions as an act of rebellion, which is what a young girl is to do in high school, but at times I think she handles things immaturely and can come across as pretentious even if she is just trying to blend in the crowd. If making big girl decisions know there is always big girl consequences. She does get bullied at times very cruel by Asher and I felt bad for her when he was so callous, but I found myself more intrigued about Asher’s anger towards her than Bex. Something about the way Asher lashed out towards Bex had me glued in because I just knew behind that anger was something else. I am not saying that him bullying her was the way to go about things because it wasn’t, but I wanted to know more. I got that they connected because of the pain they both endured by violence and tragedy, but why did Asher not just stay away from her? Why torture her endlessly to the point you couldn’t stay away? I did in all honesty feel bad for Bex, but my curiosity of Asher outweighed my connection with her. Asher and Bex mixed like oil and water but there is an attraction there underneath their animosity. Asher has a role he feels the need to play, and high school drama ensues, and he must decide to follow the herd of the crowd or stand up for what he wants in the end. The more reason I saw in Asher’s anger the more I understood why he would cling to Bex and her to him because they were brought together through tragedy and violence forever linking them. While I tried to understand Bex point of view when it came to needing closure over certain events, I still feel like Asher was justified in asking for time, not that his pain was more important or worse, but because as someone hurting, she could have tried to see it more from his point of view. Both hurting and grasping for straws to understand each other’s pain can they help each other or always cause each other pain? While I did enjoy this intense bully read, I ended up feeling more compassionate towards the bully-ier than the heroine because the one thing that Asher asked of her was the one thing she went out and did, so when he says “we’re ashes. That’s all that’s left.” I felt that in my heart for him. I tried to see Bex side of things and did understand some things but just couldn’t fully connect with her and if it wasn’t for Gabe, I probably would have ended up not liking her at all because Gabe in all his craziness was funny and honest to a fault. “We’d taken the pain and anger of loss and grief and melded it into something more, something useful, into understanding, forgiveness, love.” ( )