If you only shine light on your flaws, all your perfects will dim.

I am not going to lie, this is not an easy read. It is raw, frustrating, painful, depressing, but also realistic for what they are struggling with. I was upset with both of the main characters at times and how they dealt with their issues.

They way the book was organized in past and present was important. It showed the dichotomy of the beginning and building of their love story in flashbacks contrasted with the breaking down of their marriage in the present. The happy and passionate flashbacks helped balance out the hard parts. 

Quinn is presently struggling with losing hope and faith. She is grieving, depressed, devastated, and feels guilty. She sees herself as a failure. Her way of coping is to avoid, distance herself, and grieve privately, and she just cannot seem to crawl out of her hole.

Graham was the confident, cocky, funny, and sweet guy that won her heart even after it had been broken in the worst way by someone else. But now he cannot seem to reach her or console her. He also feels hurt, guilt, and is also angry and frustrated. He is at a loss on how to make the situation better.

This is a couple who previously thought they could weather anything due to their strong connection, chemistry, passion, and love. They came together after both dealing with heartbreak and betrayed trust, so they thought they were prepared not to fall into that trap again. But life has now  beaten them down and caused a rift that is hard to cross. They are plagued by communication issues, hurt feelings, emotional and physical avoidance, and pain. They are both lost and floundering and have lost the anchor of each other.

They at the point where they need to get out of the purgatory they are living in.  They will have to figure out if they will both just finally give up at the same time or if they can find something that will inspire them to fight for what they used to have. 

There was a bit of mystery about the significance of a certain object that was intriguing and pivotal to the story. I actually loved this concept and how it fit. 

This is a story about fate, love, hardship, and survival. They were facing problems that are common today and it was portrayed very realistically. I felt their pain. I was frustrated and angry. I wanted to hold onto hope for them, but sometimes was not sure how it could be salvaged. Both characters made me mad at times and I just wanted to shake them. There were words that brought tears to my eyes. This story had good messages and resonated with me due to some similarities in my own life. It was emotional, angsty, heartbreaking, devastating, but also humorous, passionate, inspiring, and powerful.

Ultimately these two will have to decide for themselves what they truly need to live a happy life...and what they can live with and without. Perspective is a powerful thing.

I received this book for free from Atria books and netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Quinn and Graham had a perfect love and a perfect marriage, but somewhere along the way they fell apart. The one thing they want is the thing that is driving them in separate directions, and they may just be too far away to find each other again.

They met during a challenging period for both of them. The immediate camaraderie they felt was not diminished with time or space as Quinn suspected might happen. I loved the pacing of everything following their meeting -- it set things up for me so I felt comfortable in the love that they claimed to feel even as their marriage fell apart. Because without that solid foundation, the struggles they face later on would not mean as much.

This was a raw and emotional journey from the beginning. Watching as their relationship simultaneously developed and fell apart was heartbreaking and was the driving force behind the depth of hope and pain that cycled through the book. I found myself feeling disappointment towards the characters’ actions and non-actions, but held on to hope that they could build back my feelings and their own. Had this story been told in any other method it would not have held the same emotional power as this one does.

I finished this thinking, once again, this is my favorite Colleen Hoover. I’m pretty sure I’ve said that with her last three releases, but I just love each new story she creates. This one was not easy to read, but was such a stark look at a marriage in jeopardy that I couldn’t look away!

COLLEEN HOOVER is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Slammed, Point of Retreat, This Girl, Hopeless, Losing Hope, Finding Cinderella, Maybe Someday, Maybe Not, Ugly Love, Confess, November 9, It Ends with Us, and Without Merit. Colleen has won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance three times—for Confess in 2015, It Ends with Us in 2016, and Without Merit in 2017. Confess was adapted into a seven-episode online series. In 2015, Colleen and her family founded The Bookworm Box, a bookstore and monthly subscription service offering signed novels donated by authors. All profits are given to various charities each month to help those in need. Colleen lives in Texas with her husband and their three boys. Visit ColleenHoover.com.