From bestselling author Ella Fields comes an all new standalone. An emotional new adult romance that proves love is worth fighting your demons for.Toby Hawthorne was an enigma.One I didn’t factor into my college plans.I wasn’t looking for love.I wasn’t not looking for it either.And in that state of in-between, he found me.Unaware of the battle he fought everyday, I fell fast. By the time I found … fought everyday, I fell fast.
By the time I found out, it was too late.
Because I wanted everything.
Every broken, lost part of him.
I knew I couldn’t fix him.
I could only love him.
But I should’ve known better than to think that was enough.
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“A Million Oh-Yeahs” Stars
This book seriously gave me all the feels. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so emotionally connected to a book as I was with Bittersweet Always.
Ella Fields showed us all the sides that come with the dealings of any sort of mental illnesses when she gave us our beautiful but lost soul Toby.
There was so much angst in this book. I was taken in quite a ride. When it was up one minute, I was almost afraid to keep reading because I knew it was going to go back down again. When everything felt amazing, you just couldn’t help but wonder, “Ok. This just doesn’t seem right. Something bad is coming right? Can anybody else reading this feel the same?? I don’t want to keep going. I don’t want my heart to break some more.” And that’s just the way real life is for people dealing with mental health problems. You have good days and bad days. Sometimes everything is going along great and other you’re just waiting for the shoes to drop and have everything tumble down… (speaking from personal experience.)
You’re instantly going to fall in love with Pippa. How could you not? She’s all stubborn, extremely opinionated, sassy beyond belief, and a very strong-willed girl. I wish the was a Pippa around here I could find a befriend. WE ALL COULD USE A PIPPA IN OUR LIVES.
She is the perfect person for Toby. Someone who wasn’t going to shy away from him and all of his personal issues. Especially given the fact the past Pippa came from, and even because of that, it helped her understand more and more what Toby was going through.
From the very beginning, Toby and Pippa were like two stars colliding into each other. Explosive and all consuming. Their love is what you truly call love at first sight.
“I want you to breathe me, to inhale to thoughts of me, and for you to exhale anything that stops me from overtaking every part of you. I want…” His breath stuttered, head rising to rest his forehead on mine. “To do to you exactly what you’ve done to me.”
This story will make you love, break you, make you fall in love again, and break you all over again. You’re going to be taken on a ride. You will cry, you will be happy, you will feel so many emotions as always with any book that Ella Fields gives us.
I will FOREVER love Toby and Pippa’s story. It’s my favorite one of hers yet and that says a lot because Ella Fields gives us shattering characters that stay with us for a long time.
“Loving him would always be bittersweet, but I knew then that the sweet would always outweigh the bitter.”
It’s not easy writing about a sensitive subject as mental illness is because it varies from person to person. Ella Fields handles it with respect and care. I have to applaud her for how she chose to write about and incorporate it into the story. She succeeded beautifully thanks to the two characters Pippa and Toby.
Their story resonated with me thanks to their authenticity. They felt real and so did their friendships with Daisy, Quinn, Pippa’s family and Toby’s father. The emotion was palpable throughout the entire story. It was an emotional and at times heartbreaking ride.
Toby’s struggle with anxiety and his thoughts was depicted flawlessly and with an honesty that made the scenes even more powerful. Pippa is the kind of heroine I love. She’s so strong and also admits when she’s weak and scared. She has witnessed mental illness first hand because of her father. It’s different this time around cause she loves Toby and is left powerless to watch him spiral out of control. It was excruciating to watch her struggle with what to do and the right thing to do.
I rooted for Toby and loved him so much. His pain was real and ugly. I felt it and I sympathize with him. His and Pippa’s love is new and intoxicating. They’re young and enjoying each other at the same time struggling with navigating through Toby’s behavior and severe mood swings just waiting for him to finally break and hit rock bottom. One thing that was never an issue was their love for one another.
Support is so damn important. Toby and Pippa have an abundance of that and I love how that came across from start to finish. I loved their friendships with Daisy, Quinn and the football team. Pippa’s relationship with her mother and Toby with his father were highlights too. I felt their love and support unconditionally from them all.
The epilogue was superb and ended the story spectacularly. I’m on a high and again in awe of Ella Fields. So different from her previous book Suddenly Forbidden and I couldn’t be happier. Bittersweet Always is riveting, raw and truly beautiful. Ella Fields masters any genre effortlessly and Bittersweet Always is proof of that.
5 BadAssDirtyMyHomeStars
From the first book I read by Ella Fields, she became a favorite. She is my instant 1-Click author no matter the topic. Ella writes complex emotions like no other. Life caused me to take much longer than normal to read Bittersweet Always, and as frustrating as it was (I hated putting it down!) I’m glad, because it forced me to marinate in the chaos, sadness, joy, pain, confusion, and love that is felt from beginning to end.
As you read, you can feel just how muddied Toby’s thoughts are. Constant chaos, with a broken filter that allows random thoughts to poor out… even when he knows they are off the mark. Ella’s writing allows us to feel the noise that is constantly in Toby’s head. I felt his struggle, pain, and ultimate his victory as though it were my own.
Pippa was a favorite character when we first met her in Suddenly Forbidden. She’s sharp, witty, and caring. And she’s fallen in love with the last person her heart should have allowed.
“You’re allowed to love someone who’s hurt you.”
But perhaps its just that reason she has the ability deep inside to have the strength both she and Toby need.
“Loving him would always be bittersweet, but I knew then that the sweet would always outweigh the bitter.”