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4.75 stars 📚

it’s becoming difficult to dislike an emily henry book. the way she forms her characters, their backstories, and the banter between the MCs creates the PERFECT novel. i found it soo difficult to put this book down for any length of time.

first off, i love that we got introduced to the hero in the prologue. there’s nothing i hate more than waiting to meet the hero…let’s just get to it please

Nora Stephens (h)

nora is a literacy agent and what you’d call a “ice princess��. she comes across as a very cold person because she has trouble expressing her emotions and tends to work too much. she had a really difficult childhood. her dad abandoned her and her sister which left their mom to raise them by herself.

nora feels like she needs to work hard, so she and her sister, libby, never have to be in a position where they’re struggling financially like they did when they were younger. she also has this crazy need to constantly help people, no matter the sacrifice

Charlie Lastra (H)

now onto my love, charlie 🥰 he’s a famous book editor that turns everything he touches into gold. my favorite description of him was by my girl, TJ. she actually referred to him as a “v�����辱������ because he’s super broody and likes to be hidden away. the ice princess and the vampire 😌

nora’s first impression of him gives me actual life��

His black clothes, dark features, and general demeanor have the approximate effect on the room of a black hole, sucking all the light out of it and swallowing it entirely.

—he’s not only sucking all the light, but taking my heart with it 🥰

romance

it’s weird because nora and charlie are soo alike yet nothing alike. although nora comes off as “cold�� to others, with him it was like light and dark meeting. they had the same interests, but she was scared to open up to someone and be in relationship and he wasn’t

nora and charlie meet in the prologue for work purposes. nora wants charlie to edit an up-and-coming release from one of her clients. charlie rejects her over to edit the book for one reason: the setting

unknowing to nora, he hates the setting because it’s based in Sunshine Falls, the tiny town he grew up in. for the sake of spoilers, i’ll avoid giving detail on why he feels this way

2 whole years pass when libby, convinces nora to visit the little town that charlie hates so much for an entire month. AND SO IT BEGINS

the amount of tension nora and charlie radiate all but reached through my phone and smacked me across the face. charlie wants to know why nora decided to come to Sunshine Falls. she simply responds “vacation��. and boyyy does he not like liars��

He leans in again, his hand catching my chin, his thumb landing squarely on the divot at the corner of my lips. My breath catches. His voice is low and raspy: “Liar.��

that was the moment where charlie transformed from a broody vampire to a spicy specimen of a man. the tension gets even spicier as the night goes on��

His eyes are heavy on me, his pupils almost blotting out his irises, a lustrous ring of honey around a deep, dark pit.

Heat gathers between my thighs, and I uncross and recross my legs. Charlie’s eyes drop to follow the motion, and his water glass hitches against his bottom lip��

i’m in love with the way he loved to make her laugh. there’s nothing more attractive than a guy with a sense of humor, but it's even better when his goal is to make you �󲹱�����

I lean across the table, grabbing the bottle and tipping it over his glass until it’s full to the brim. As deadpan as ever, he hunches and slurps from the glass without lifting it.
I burst into laughter against my will, and he’s so visibly pleased it gives me a full-body twinge of pride. He wants to make me laugh.

����������

I smother a laugh with the back of my hand. His face twitches, and my heart flutters at the extraordinarily pleased look on his face.

and the way he ALWAYS knew the right thing to say. emily henry wrote him as the most endearing and understanding hero ever and i'm LIVING

“Until you got here,�� he rasps, “all this place had ever been was a reminder of the ways I was a disappointment, and now you’re here, and—I don’t know. I feel like I’m okay. So if you’re the ‘wrong kind of woman,�� then I’m the wrong kind of man.��

they have sex for the first time about 3/4 of the way through the book. once again, CHARLIE IS SO PERFECT. like when he asks nora if she’s on birth control and she responds “yes, but–�� and he puTS ON A CONDOM BECAUSE IT’S WHAT SHE WANTS. NO QUESTIONS ASKED.

for the past 2847389 books I’ve read, it’s always the MCs agreeing to raw dog it off the bat. this was so refreshing and on top of that, the way he didn’t even need her to explain herself 🥺🥺

charlie proceeds to say this��

He thrusts deeper, harder.
“Fuck, Charlie.��
“Too hard?�� he asks, slowing.
I shake my head. He understands. No more caution or restraint.
“I thought about you everywhere,�� he says. “There’s nowhere in this town we haven’t done this.��

🩸 spoiler part of the review ❄️

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throughout the whole book, nora’s sister was VERY secretive. nora noticed things like her ignoring her husband, arguing on the phone with someone, and being given the number to a divorce attorney.

in the end, we find out that libby planned this trip, not because her and her husband we divorcing or having problems…but that they were moving there! she only asked nora to go was to make her “fall in love with the place��. nora loves New York City and knows she’ll never leave it which is why Libby went to every length to make her fall in love with the town.

in my opinion, libby was a fucking bitch, also extremely self-centered. nora has done EVERYTHING for her. she gave up her dream job of being a book editor and instead kept her job as an agent because it paid more.

what does nora get? being criticized for answering a work call, lied to and being referred to as “cold�� just because she cares about doing her job 🤡



at some point in the novel, nora finds out that charlie isn’t going back to New York and instead staying in Sunshine Falls to run his family's bookstore. nora tells charlie she’ll stay here for him, but he won’t let her

hold on…cry break��

okay, i’m good…sorta 😂😂 charlie understands the sacrifices nora has made for her sister’s happiness, so he won’t let her do it for him. he wants her to go back to New York so she can follow her dreams UGH��

“Of course I love you, Nora. If I loved you any less, I’d be trying to convince you that you could be happy here. You have no idea how badly I wish I could be enough.��

IM CRYING AGAIN! why does he have to be so perfect? why can't he just make her stay like all the other heroes so I don’t have to be put through this pain 😡

in the final chapter, it’s now December and nora is in New York, without charlie or libby. to celebrate her mom’s birthday, she visits their favorite bookstore. right before arriving, libby texts her��

I’ll let you go, she says. But send a pic when the present gets there, okay?

THE SECOND I READ THIS I KNEW WHAT WAS COMING OMFGGGG

it’s like a scene from a movie 😭😭 she goes to grab a book at the same time he does and it’s like magic 💋💋💋 i must take this moment to once again praising Emily Henry. the whole scene of them reuniting was written so perfectly-

But this, I realize, is what they mean, all those thousands of writers who’ve tried to describe the sensation of following the trail of your life for years, only to smack into something that changes it forever.
The way the sensation jars through you, from the center out. How you feel it in your mouth and toes all at once, a dozen tiny explosions.
��…]
My body has moved from winter into spring, all those scraggly little sprouts pushing up through a crush of snow. Spring, alive and awake in my bloodstream.

charlie and nora…cora??? narlie??? narlie is giving surfer boy 🤙🏻🤙🏻

anyway, charlie and nora proceed to express their undying love for each other while i sob in my pajamas 🥰

original thoughts after finishing:
reading this book while PMS-ing is not a good combination. tell me why i sobbed during the entire final 2 chapters??? i cried during cute moments…CUTE I SAY

edit 5/22/22: edited this review because everyone failed to tell me that i called Sunshine Falls Sunville Falls plus the grammar was so icky. i’m disappointed in my past self from a couple weeks ago ☹️