I was nervous going into this one based on reviews saying it was much darker than the rest of Hoang's books and not the kind of romance people were expecting...and I have to say I completely agree.
Synopsis: After Anna Sun goes viral on Youtube for violin, skyrocketing her career, she finds that she can no longer find the same talent, feeling inadequate. Then, her long-term boyfriend decides he wants an open relationship leading Anna to set out for a one-night stand. Enter Quan, a tattooed motorcycle-riding man from a dating app, who also happens to be in recovery from cancer treatment. Anna attempts to be adventurous but her and Quan's endeavors keep getting cut short and Anna begins to feel something more. That is until a family tragedy strikes pulling her closer to her difficult family and away from Quan.
Plot: Starting off the plot already seemed a lot darker than Hoang's previous and as the book progressed it only got more so. I think this is a very important story about autism discovery, family acceptance and self-acceptance but I'm not sure I would call it a romance. The writing of course is stunning but so many of the actual romantic scenes are glazed over to make room for the trauma and the rest of the plot. At the ending I didn't feel all happy and giggly as I like my romances to do, not saying they all have to be that way, but this was just a very heavy story leaving me angry and frustrated with how it all played out. It just felt like all sides were beating the reader down, from a crappy ex-boyfriend to caring for a sick relative to gaslighting non-supportive family life...it was just a hard read.
Characters: The characters were both fantastic and easy to love. The two of them as singular people are not the problem I had with this book. It was just hard to root for a couple that clearly needs time to themselves to work on healing. The relationship quickly becomes unhealthily dependent and watching Quan fight for Anna who cannot love him with where she is at in life was just adding to the pain of the rest of the novel. Huan was one of my favorite characters from the previous books, so funny and lighthearted, so this was definitely not what I expected from his love story.
There are so many things to love about this but I just don't think it was the story for me. It is also so hard to review and it kills me to rate it so low but...
3/5 stars.
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