I feel like a flower being taken out of the shadows and put into the sun. I’m blooming for the first time since I broke through the earth’s soil. With characters drawn together by shared abandonment issues, this angsty romantic suspenser ends with a hopeful happily-ever-after... Hoover's ardent fans will be thrilled. Booklist

Beyah has a stepsister she's never met named Sarah and Sarah has a friend named Samson. Samson and Beyah seem to be from totally different worlds, but they're more alike then one would think. They both have a lot of secrets, but Beyah can't help but to want to tell all her secrets to Samson and that is very unlike her. the plot twist was definitely more easy to stomach in this book. as i’ve said before, i do think that this book is much lighter, simply because it shows how people do bad things, and it doesn’t define them. some people do bad things out of desperation because it’s the only way to survive. it shows that we have to be selfish and own our place in this world which i appreciated. my main problem with coho’s other books was the fact that these toxic mmc’s would do terrible things to the fmc and rather than leaving, they would be given another chance and we are expected to believe they “stay together” for eternity. however, this book did no such thing and rather showed a person just trying to cover up their mistakes from the person they loved as a way to feel accepted and not morally wrong, like how samson knew. also his name being shawn?? it was an unexpected plot point and i felt like it helped build up to the actual plot twist towards the end. Recién graduada de la secundaria y a dos meses de ir a la universidad con una beca que consiguió con el equipo de voleyball, al llegar al tráiler donde vive con su madre, la encuentra muerta de una sobredosis. El cuerpo de su madre está aún caliente cuando le piden que desaloje el tráiler. Eso la deja en la calle con la única opción de llamar a su padre, con el que no tiene una relación cercana y al que no ve desde hace varios años. Peor aún, su padre se casó y tiene que compartir la casa de playa en la que se están quedando por el verano con su esposa y una hermanastra. I’ve spent a lot of years becoming the person I am. It’s hard to change who you are in a span of a few days. Maybe the only reason I wasn’t accepted is because I didn’t want to be. It was easier to stay to myself.i just loved how the beach was portrayed and how they described it. beyah’s reaction to seeing the ocean for the first time was amazing and it brought out another side to her character. not to mention it made me want to go to the beach more than i already do, which is often. the houses, the sunsets, and everything were so fun to imagine even given the simplicity of it added with the description of the big, rich mansions. She’s not planning to let anyone in. She just needs a place to stay. And then she meets Samson, the best friend of her stepsister’s boyfriend. The two are drawn to one another but Beyah feels ill-at-ease around him, partially because they are so different on the surface: Samson is a child of wealth and privilege, while Beyah has known mostly neglect and poverty. My mouth falls open when it hits me. Samson remembered what I told him—that no one has ever come to any of my games. Beyah on the ferry on the way to the beach house meets Samson, young, beautiful, womanizing and rich, but she can tell that he is just as broken as she is. They have a very bad first encounter which makes the following encounters just as bad. She wants to resist being one more of Samson's summer flings, but the attraction they feel is indisputable and they realize that they have a lot in common, but their destinies are too far apart.

Nothing is known about Samson, only that he is the son of someone who has a lot of money. Beyah tries to find out and he doesn't tell her. So they agree to be together for the summer and that in the end he will answer everything she wants to know. I didn’t realize what seeing the ocean would mean to me, but now that I’ve seen it, I want every human on earth to experience it.Beyah is trying to adjust to living in a family unit with people she is struggling to find fault with, in fact they are really open and kind to her - not something she is used to at all. Her step-sister Sarah is one of nicest people she has met and they form a close bond, which is something Beyah had no idea she was missing until now. And then there is the boy next door, Samson.

Have you ever heard the saying ‘under the circumstances?’ Someone once said to me they could never understand why people said things like ‘I’m doing okay, under the circumstances.’ He then said he would ask ‘what are you doing under the circumstances?’ If there was anyone who could voice this idiom and mean it, it would be Beyah Grim.Even though pieces of me resemble pieces of them, I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged to either one of them. It’s as if I adopted myself when I was a kid and have been on my own since then. I don’t have to know anything about your past to know you’re a good person. I can tell by your actions. I can tell by the way you treat me. Why would it matter what kind of family you have, or how rich you are, or what the people in your past meant to you before I showed up?” I don’t understand humans sometimes. I hate it, because I find myself wishing that the entirety of humanity would suffer just a tiny amount more than they do.