Five cartwheeling stars of perfect go to Mazey for giving us this incredible, evocative book! They’ve always been in each other’s back pockets. They snark and snap and malign each other like there’s no tomorrow. To Jude, Indira was always his best friend’s annoying little sister. She could always be counted on to give him grief and target him with her sharp tongue. To Indira, Jude’s always been someone she had to tolerate. Someone who can be just as mean and snarky as she can. Someone she tolerates out of necessity. Indira is a trained psychologist, and when Jude reacts to noise and stimuli she approaches him because she’s worried about him. And they start to see past the impressions that have clouded the way they see each other. They are both staying at her brother’s house and helping plan the wedding, The forced proximity leads an acute awareness of each other. The awareness blooms as Indira intercepts for Jude in situations that bring out the impacts of his trauma, and they come to depend on each other.Falling in love is a series of distilled moments that tell how a story happened. I want to be Indira and I want to hug Jude. Actually, I want to hug them both because of their courage.Indira and Jude have been building their story since they were kids … they just didn’t know it then. Their story is….I’ll stand in the corner with you shoulder to shoulder and we can make snarky observations.It’s cheesesteak.And he remembers what you always order.It’s bumblebee costumes- and how does the sight of you in that turn me on so much.It’s tent wrestling.It’s floor picnics courtesy of Grubhub for your birthday.It’s someone willing to step in and help you haul away all the broken furniture that makes you feel broken too.It’s someone who sees inside you and loves the mess that’s there - because it makes you who you are and it’s made up of all the reasons why they’re your person.It’s someone who tells you it’s okay to let your emotions swamp you, whether they’re good or bad, because then you’re giving yourself permission to heal.I absolutely love this book. It has on point mental health rep and realistically depicts and handles trauma and emotional wounds- especially those inflicted by those we love. Especially those we inflict on ourselves because we are trying to become the version of ourselves we think the world demands. This book delicately handles the mental health struggles of its main characters and showcases the coexistence of resilience and fragility. It deftly portrays the stigma attached to confessing mental health struggles, and beautifully depicts what the journey of self-acceptance and healing is like. Jude and Indira both have personal trauma that shapes the way they love and live, and this story emphasizes that our trauma is part and parcel of who we are. It doesn’t mean we’re broken . It means we have greater understanding of the vulnerabilities of others and ourselves.