One moment, the corners of my lips tugged into smiles; sometime later, a band pulled tight around my chest, and the lump in my throat pushed tears into my eyes. But when an almost-kiss goes from almost to I am now wearing your lip gloss, Penny and Tate have no choice but to finally face the music.

It made me hopeful, and it made me want to dive into the book and give Penny and Tate a massive hug. But the majority of the plot is dealing with a sick parent, both their moms undergoing major surgery, stress about being able to pay the bills, the death of a father, an emotionally absent mother, and recovering from a traumatic injury. The story will draw readers in with its irresistible slow-burn romantic fanfic-like premise, but it will also make them stick around to see the resolution of this convoluted family drama that includes love, loss, grief, dysfunction, and healing. While this is only the second Tess Sharpe book I’ve read (I still have Far From You on my to be read list, I know, I know, I’ll get there eventually), I have to say that I am loving that her books are hard hitting contemporaries.and i lovedddd their relationship—the pining, the being known and understood in a way you haven't really before and did i mention the pining? First of all, the audiobook is narrated by the author and my previous experiences of authors narrating their own books weren’t great but this one was excellent. Unlike anything I’ve read before… immediate, gripping, incredibly tense, heart-breaking, heart-warming and FUN! In this, you have it twofold: a mother-daughter relationship ruined by grief after the death of a husband/father, and a mother-daughter relationship dealing with a recurrence of cancer and a necessary operation. Penny and Tate just can’t stop almost kissing, and readers will be on the edge of their seats waiting for the next vignette of past near-kisses as they piece together the romantic history between the two.

I do not love that dynamic, I find it incredibly horrible to experience, but instead of ruining the book (which has definitely happened to me before) I can respect it because Sharpe did such a great job with. They’re not quite friends, but they’ve seen each other at their worst moments and, for all they claim to dislike each other, have stuck through thick and thin.After all, their mothers have been best friends for ages, so they HAD to grit their teeth through many a movie marathon or playdate they would have rather avoided.