Review Detail

Full disclosure: I've never actually seen You've Got Mail, which is what this book is based on. I'm actually kind of glad I haven't seen it though because I wasn't expecting anything specific or anticipating how it would end. I loved this because it was just super cute and gave me the warm fuzzies.

I really liked the characters. I thought they were well-rounded and that they were very fleshed out and genuine. I found their interactions to be believable and I liked that there was some diversity to the cast.

The romance!!! Oh my goodness, I was SWOONING. The romance was SO adorable and just really lovely and I just can't believe how CUTE Bailey and Porter were. I loved the development of their relationship, too. I adored them so much and they were just the absolute cutest.

I also really liked the quotes from movies at the top of the chapters. I thought it added a little something special and it fit very well with Bailey's love of film. Each quote was related to something happening in the story and I just thought it was a nice touch.

I thought that Bailey's PTSD was handled well (although I haven't dealt with it myself, so I could be wrong). I thought that her trigger was explained well and that her panic attack was too. It was nice to see someone dealing with PTSD in a YA novel, as I don't think I've ever really seen that before, especially not in a contemporary.

There were some things that I didn't really like. I thought that Porter and his dad were incredibly violent and it kind of disturbed me that their first inclination when dealing with someone that they had problems with was to threaten them with violence or to actually resort to violence. Bailey was also kind of uncomfortable with it, but she never actually addressed it or talked to Porter about it, which I thought was kind of weird and could've been a good thing to include.

I also thought that Porter's reaction at the end was kind of ridiculous, over the top, and unjustified. I felt like he didn't really give Bailey a good explanation for it either and I thought that he kind of mistreated her with the situation without a real reason for it. I wish that he had apologized for it, too.

Despite those issues, though, I really loved this book. It was really swoon-worthy and it's definitely one of my new favorite contemporaries. I highly recommend it, especially for those of you who like "hate-to-love" or "pen pals who fall in love" tropes.

Content warning: sexual situations, drug use, guns/shooting, violence