Heat Factor: He’s a photographer and there’s a “draw me like one of your French girls” moment, so…pretty steamy. But not heavy in bedroom scenes, and more towards the end of the book.
Character Chemistry: It’s SO fraught. They’re clearly meant to be together but there’s a best friend in a coma and that really messes with things.
Plot: Blair awakes from a coma having met the man of her dreams…in her dreams. When she wakes up, she realizes that he’s a real person stuck in a coma as well, in the same hospital she was in. As she pieces everything together, her life becomes entwined with the life of her dream guy’s best friend, Regan, and she begins to realize that she’s going to have to choose.
Overall: If you’re thinking “Oh, cute. A Sleepless in Seattle remix.” You’re WRONG and you should get your tissues.
So I wholeheartedly believed this was going to be a book where the best friend and the coma girl fall in love, waiting for the coma guy to wake up, and then he does, but he’s not THE ONE anymore, so best friend and coma girl are free to be together and everyone skips off into the sunset. But that’s not this book. This book is a mess, but in a very juicy and good way.
Essentially, the story starts with Blair having awakened from a coma she sustained at her work as a teacher. During her coma, she fell in love with a guy she met in a field (Tyler), and she wakes up positive that he’s not a total figment of her imagination. First of all, she still sees him every time she dreams, so they’re kind of…dating? And this is confirmed when she finds an article about him in the paper.
Eventually, she’s able to connect with his only living relative, his cousin and best friend, Regan. And this is where the book gets just absolutely bananas–from this point on, there’s sort of two love triangles, Blair has a devious and crappy ex wandering around the plot, Regan is framed for a crime, there’s a trial, Blair AND her best friend AND her sister all start catching feelings for people related to Blair’s coma and subsequent recovery, and Blair is still dream dating Tyler.
It’s a lot.
And I think it really helps because the Blair and Regan plotline is sluggish–they start out really mistrustful and prickly with pain, and then they kind of form an alliance. But with Tyler and all the grief in the picture, they really can’t fool around or progress too much or they run the risk of being kind of unlikeable people. So fortunately, there are plenty of messes going on in the meantime.
I liked how the characters were a bit emotionally clumsy in the beginning of the book. They all have moments where they kind of bungle things and then patch it up. I also LOVED how they sneakily grew and matured as the plot progressed–it was very gradual, and oh so sneaky. So when the author throws one last major curveball into the relationship, it’s understandably pretty satisfying when they handle it together.
It’s important to know that this book features death, a surprise pregnancy, and disordered eating triggers in here, so if you would like or need to avoid that subject matter, you might want to skip this one. And I guess some people don’t like love triangles, but I kind of don’t see how that applies here because one third of the main love triangle doesn’t actually have a body in any of his interactions with the heroine. The other love triangle occurs primarily off the page and isn’t a major factor until the end. (Confused? This book is just really full of intense moments that I’m trying not to ruin, so I’m being purposefully vague. Sorry!)
Anyway, sometimes it’s nice to have a good cry and feel like everything is kind of meant to be, and we’re just along for the ride. And if you want to feel that way, this is a pretty satisfying tearjerker (with a happy ending!).
I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.
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