Can you love when all seems lost? Ellie Perkins life was right on track until her boyfriend Sam suffers a near-fatal car accident, leaving him in a coma and all their future plans in limbo. Desperately in need of something to fix, Ellie has to find a project and when her grandparents old house is put up for sale, she jumps at the chance. Because, like Ellie, the house is broken. And if she can … broken. And if she can fix the house, then surely, it’s just a matter of time before she and Sam are back on their path to happily-ever-after…
In life, when the worst happens how do you pick up the pieces?
A heart-breaking story of love, loss and the path to forgiveness, perfect for fans of Faith Hogan and Amanda Prowse. To be read with tissues.
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I’ve never been this emotional before—well I did, but not too much—and I feel like my heart has been ripped into tiny pieces after reading this book. Not only was this book about loss, but it was also about healing. I feel a lot of emotions, mainly sadness. I’ve never cried so hard reading a book like I did with this one.
The whole story is basically about Ellie’s journey to recovery—emotionally—after she suffered a big loss. Also, this is about her journey to find hope again, getting her second chance, and how she cope with her life after what happened to her boyfriend, Sam.
There was also a lot of things happening in this book, it really shows how many people were sadden by Sam’s accident. Clearly, he has touch a lot of lives. He was so precious, and I get why everyone loved him.
This story doesn’t just focus on Ellie’s life, and her journey, but it also focuses on her friendship with other people. The story also showed a little glimpse to other people’s lives and the problems they were facing in their respective lives. It was nice of the author to touch a little bit on the other characters and making the readers see that not only Ellie has to go through challenges in her everyday lives, but also everyone has their own challenges they need to go through.
All the characters in this book are so likable, and so realistic that I feel like the characters are real people. Even though all of them aren’t perfect and they have flaws, but they did try to be better and I can see that the author write these characters so well. Usually, it was hard to find well-written characters in books, but this one was on point. I loved and adored all the characters that appeared in the story despite all their flaws.
Ellie is the heroine of this story, and so she is the main character in this book. She has to go through a lot of things before and after Sam. She started to feel so broken after she received the news of Sam’s accident. From there I can already see her turning into a broken woman who was trying all her best to make the love of her life wakes up again. Watching her hoping for the better days was truly saddening. Seeing her sitting beside Sam’s hospital bed, talking to him while he was still in a coma really hit me so hard. I was hoping for him to wake up too.
It took Ellie exactly one year for her to be able to pick up the pieces of her broken self and also her life again. Her road to recovery was a tough one, she was just emotionally broken and tired, and I understand why she don’t want to get help as her cousin and everyone she knew told her to. Her pain was too big, and going to a support group to tell her story was something she wasn’t able to handle. I totally get her and her whole situation, so I can’t blame her for preferring to go through it all alone by herself.
The whole journey to recovery was truly a life-changing experience for Ellie. The loss and the grief shaped her into a much better version of herself. And her character grew a lot from trying to fix everything in her life that went wrong. Also, seeing her going out and doing some outdoor activities was her step to recovery, and from there she slowly putting back her broken self and be the new version of her—a much stronger version. After all the loss and all the tears, she finally toughen up and do things she doesn’t usually do to cope with everything she has lost in her life.
Following Ellie on her journey was emotional; there are happy moments and sad moments too. After all, her journey made her realize that she can’t always hold on to the past, and that eventually she had to let it all go even when she wasn’t ready. She did the right thing by letting the past go and made peace with it, and her problem with her mom—so that she can properly move on with her life.
I don’t know much about Sam and how he is like as a person. But, all the flashback chapters proved that he is so lovable, so patient, and admired by a lot of people who knew him. He loved helping people, and loved exploring the wilderness. Camping was his thing, and he loved doing it. He was so forgiving, and so kind. It was sad that he couldn’t be there physically in the present day chapters, but the memories of him will always keep him alive.
The flashback chapters was hard for me to read, honestly. It was due to knowing Sam wasn’t there in the present made it hard reading the flashback chapters because it was obviously reminiscing all the sweet and happy memories of Ellie and him. Their relationship was smooth and steady, it was nice but even though they were happy together, there are times when they argued—not a big one—but they always apologized to each other, and made up for their mistakes. Ellie and Sam had a nice and healthy relationship from all the memories, and no wonder Ellie was so broken over losing him and why she wasn’t ready to move on. I would say this, Ellie was lucky to have someone like him. These two are so lovely together.
There are so many good and also emotional aspects in the story. It was truly a life-changing experience for me, and there are so many lessons I learned from reading this book. To be honest, I finished this book in one whole day. Started from the afternoon and finished at night, and I’ve been crying for 10 hours straight reading this book. My eyes hurt so bad, but this book really worth all the tears I’ve shed. I’m just glad I don’t have a serious eye problem due to all the crying.
This story was about so many things. It was about loss, love, friendship, family, grief, second chances in life, and most importantly, it was about healing. This book taught me that there are so many forms of healing, and that letting go of the past is the only way to move on in life because holding on to the past will only hurt me more. The ending was nice and it brought a smile to my face. It was a beautiful ending to close this sad and wonderful story. To see everyone gather together, smiling, laughing, and started to heal after what they’ve been through was truly delightful.
This book was such a joy, and everybody should read this moving story. I really enjoyed it despite how much it broke my heart and then mend it back together. Glad that I spend my time reading this amazing book. I highly recommend this to those who loves reading Women’s Fiction. But please, prepare a lot of tissues or a handkerchief for you to wipe your tears.