“there are rare people who will fuel the fire inside of you, who will awaken a dormant passion, who will challenge you, who will push you and better you. she alone is my rarity.”
♾️⭐️’s. i truly don’t even know where to begin. if you loved “kiss the sky” and thought it was good…let me just tell you that this book takes the cake. this is honestly my second favorite book out of the entire series, as of right now of course🤭while raisy is, and always will be, my favorite couple…it’s impossible for me to rank these beautiful pairs🥹i’d separate the three and rank them in different categories because i love them all for different reasons, but i’ll talk more about this in my review for “some kind of perfect” <3
“you are my equal,” i say this slowly so the words sink in.
“if you could kill me, knowing that i’d be replaced with the same features, but with your exact personality, would you do it?” she questions.
“no,” i answer without a beat. “it would be pointless to date someone just like me. i would know every move, every desire, everything. i adore the way you polarize me.”
coballoway🥹academic rivals to lovers. their relationship is everything to me, i love everything about it. they’re so different from any other couple i’ve ever read about. i love the way they challenge each other, how they both refuse to be wrong. i love how they speak french to each other when they argue/flirt. i love that they take quotes from their own/each other’s favorite books to express their love🥹i love their banter…
“is that a smile?”
“no,” she says. “it’s a hateful frown.”
“if we’re going to rename all of societies constructs, then i’ll be sure to call that sink a table and the ceiling the floor.”
“you’re infuriating.”
“you’re gorgeous.”
~stop it rn, i’m blushing.
i love the games they play…from a simple chess game, to fuck marry kill, to a more complicated, coballoway version of a crossword puzzle, and finally to a game they play where one asks a random trivia question and if they get it wrong…they have to be ignored for 24 hours straight.
“first word that comes to you,” he tests me, probably right at 10a.m.—not a minute too late. he shifts his hand off my mouth, his body and mind meeting mine at once. “rose.”
“love.” i say in one breath.
they got me wanting to ignore my bf for 24 hours because this whole scene was unexplainably hot…speaking of hot, the spicy scenes between connor and rose have the most effect on me. when i tell you guys i get the exact same feeling in my stomach as if i was on a roller coaster going down a 100 foot drop🦋🦋…connor is so fine. i love how he dominates rose in the bedroom but is her complete equal outside of the bedroom. let me just say…he uses his belt to choke her. i was screamingggggg.
i grip her face in a strong hand and kiss her lips. “c’est tout?” anything else?
she lets out another breath. “ne soyez pas gentil.” don’t be gentle.
i can’t even remember the last time that i was. “i wasn’t planning on it.”
is he hot? or is he just…connor cobalt? love a good rhetorical question ;) and if y’all thought all that was hot…connor as a dad!?!?! i can’t handle it😩i think my favorite thing about coballoway is how they parent. connor has always wanted kids, 8 to be exact. rose, on the other hand, didn’t want kids until way later on in the future in fear of being just like her mother. rose has never really been an affectionate person so every time i read about her with jane…i could not stop smiling.
- her eyes well with tears, but her lips close, her wail vanishing. she sniffs, and i even wipe beneath her nose. what i do for this one. i kiss her smooth cheek and whisper, “tu es forte, ma farouche petite fille.” you are strong, my little fierce girl.
SOBBING😭jane is so precious and the way rose is with her absolutely melts my heart every time. connor’s problem used to be his ability to love, so seeing connor being so lovey with his daughter is one of my favorite things ever🥺
- “a child, our child, unlatches things inside of us that we’ve kept closed. love, for me. warmth, for her. i selfishly crave another one. i selflessly would ruin my reputation to protect every child of mine.”
- “i love jane, and i feel strong enough to move mountains for her, to part waters and dig through stone.”
i love the way connor selflessly loves jane🥹he’s a total girl dad hehe.
“mommy’s going to drop kick anyone that touches you.”
“and daddy’s going to bail mommy out of jail.”
~just adopt me already😩rose and connor would do anything for jane just like they’d do anything for their family (lilo and raisy)🥹
as much fun as i was having with coballoway…a big chunk of this book absolutely broke me. i’m still trying to recover from it😩it’s one of the reasons why i’m taking so long with this review. connor and rose have always done a good job at hiding their emotions…connor doing a better job than rose, but all that goes down the drain when the people they care about get hurt. seeing rose and connor be vulnerable with each other actually made me sob. it was too much. i felt all the pain they were keeping inside and when they finally let it all out…i was done for :(
i whisper, “i can hear our hearts breaking.”
a tear wets my fingertips, his tears, and his other hand encases my face, the way mine does him.
his lips nearly skim mine. “i’ll shield your ears from the sound of heartbreak.”
my chest swells. “and what happens when i ache to hear your voice?”
“i’ll whisper beyond every anguished sound.” he closes his lips over mine, once, before murmuring, “tu m’entendras toujours, où que je sois.” you will always hear me, no matter where i am.
“and can you still hear me?” i wonder, a breath between our lips.
“toujours.” always.
this scene and how it made me feel is forever engraved into my mind. finding it within themselves to be vulnerable with each other, i know, wasn’t easy, but it just goes to show how much they love and care about each other to show that side of them. connor and rose’s character development is so good and this book has definitely shown the best versions of them. i adore them so much and could talk about them for hours and hours, but this review is already so long and i still want to talk about the rest of the core six🤭
♡connor and lo🥹
finding out what connor and rose did for lily and lo…i sobbed. what coballoway did were things that they would never do, but they did what they had to do in order to protect their family and when i say family…i’m not just referring to their daughter. the core six and their children are all a family, no one else in these books allowed hehe. connor and lo’s relationship has pretty much always been connor helping lo in anyway possible…guys😭
- “you’ve helped me for years. now it’s time i help you, and i’m not acting like you’re a leper because this guy tells me to. you may be fucking weird as hell when you and rose start verbally sparring, but you’re my weirdo best friend. that’s not changing.”
😭i love them sfm. love their friendship and i especially love their banter🤭
♡connor and ryke omg🥹
the way they’ve gotten so close makes me so happy. 9 time out of 10 these two always have me laughing. the banter with ryke is sometimes funnier because unlike lo, ryke doesn’t banter back hahaha.
“you’re such a pain in my ass.” he says lightly, heading towards the locker rooms where the girls are.
i follow beside him. “impossible,” i say, “i’ve never been near your ass.”
he flips me off, the usual response. our friendship may be off but at least i can call it one.
~😂🥹🤭i love them <3
then there’s moments between them that make me wanna cry because of how nice they are to each other and how they would do anything for each other. i’m tearing up now just thinking about it. connor’s never had friends either before ryke and lo. ugh i love the found family🤭
- “maybe i haven’t seen beneath all of ryke meadows’ layers, but i do know one thing: we’re good friends. i’d do just about anything for him, and i’m certain he’d do the same for me.”
yes he would🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹
‼️spoilers ahead besties <3
♡the calloway sisters🥹
these three🥺being able to see them form a closer bond has been nothing but beautiful. rose and connor choosing daisy and ryke to be jane’s godparents🥹and then lily and lo choosing connor and rose to be moffy’s godparents. i CRIED. that was so beautiful and it literally made rose cry too. daisy omg :( my sunshine girl. she’s going through so much and yet her light is still so blinding. i ache for her. the scene where she told her sisters she has endometriosis. that is my absolute biggest fear so when i tell you guys it took my bf half an hour to calm me down from sobbing…i wasn’t lying :( i am absolutely dreading the final book of the series before the epilogue novel. i just know i’m gonna need to have my large box of tissues on standby🤧omg and then rose telling daisy to save her eggs and rose will carry daisy’s baby, however many she wants to have…sobbed. absolutely sobbed. then when rose and connor moved out of the house just down the street :( that had no business being that fucking sad of an ending to this book :( i wasn’t ready. i love these three women with my entire fucking heart.
‼️spoilers done <3
♡coballoway’s unforgettably cute moments:
i grin. “rose, rose, rose,” i feign contemplation, “always making me work for the win.” just how i like it.
“richard, richard, richard,” she practically smites my name. and then she pauses, her eyes drilling into me. “go win.”
~i love it when she calls him by his first name🤭
i stroke the back of her head. “you make me forget the worst parts of life.”
“and what’s the term for that?”
“soul mate,” i say.
her lips part in surprise. “what?”
“if you’d like other terms, i have those too: my wife, my sometimes competitor, my always teammate, my friend, the mother of my child—“
“rewind,” she waves at me. “to the soul mate part.”
i smile. “i love you, rose.”
~i want this man. i am absolutely swooning. butterflies in my tummy. absolutely in love with this man.
when i finally unearth the tempest i flip open the cover. sticky notes lie inside the margins. dozens of them, his neat scrawl in blue ink. i thumb through the pages, my heart racing. he annotated it.
shakespeare’s words: “i would not wish any companion in the world but you.”
connor’s annotation: nothing is truer
his lips to my ear, he whispers, “hear my soul speak.” i feel his grin against my cheek.
it’s beautiful. my favorite play with his real thoughts combined.
~HE ANNOTATED HER FAVORITE PLAY!?!?! shut up rn. stop it cuz if my man annotated my favorite book and gifted it to me…i will immediately have his babies. this scene was so beautiful and it’s definitely my favorite🥹🤭
♡favorite moments/thoughts💭
- coballoway is perfect, no one can tell me otherwise.
- #RCCthisislove🤭
- on daisy’s birthday, ryke bought her a siberian husky as a service dog for her ptsd😭i adore him.
- finally knowing coballoways wedding vows🥹so precious.
- the bar scene🥵🥵🥵rose is so lucky.
- connor standing up for himself instead of letting shit slide. slayyyyy!
- the core six rock climbing in a gym lollll i loved that.
- ryke and connor speaking to each other in french and then connor changing to itlaian to figure out what languages ryke knows. they’re both so fineeeee.
- jane’s first words🥹this scene was everything.
- every little lilo moment, i ate all that up because i miss my babies sm.
♡favorite quotes:
- “she fuels the fire in my soul, the embers slowly dying, and she tries feverishly to awaken me.”
- “but i have every real part of him. every part i love. even if the world may not understand him, i do.”
- “one day, jane," i whisper, "you'll surpass me in all ways. i hope you do.” i think about more children, a fog of a future. “i hope you all do.”
- “rose is so many layers of beautiful that even i’d have trouble touching each one.”
- “i know i’ve married the right person when words turn you on as much as they do me.”
- “you should never hate the better version of you, the one that loves, the one that hurts—because this man in front of me is extraordinary.” her words flood me, choke me, grip me and burn me.
- “i’ve been split open. i’ve been spilled bare. i’ve allowed her spirit to seep inside of me—to remind me, remind me…why i love.”
- “i want many things. the first of which is to protect my girls. then i want to have more children. lastly i want my family to feel safe and loved and complete.”
- “i’ve been dealt a fuller set of cards than the ones passed to lily and daisy. they’re just as strong, if not stronger. i’ve always been here as extra reinforcement, and however old we become, however gray we are, that won't ever change.”
- “i’ve never seen daisy as radiant as she is in ryke’s presence.”
- “my life is dull without loren hale.”
- “i have no guilt about my decision to tell the truth. that i slept with men in my past. i am proud of the choices i’ve made in life, and i won't let other people dig beneath my skin and make me feel ashamed of who i am.” PERIOD!!!! connor is so baeeeee!🤭🤭
ps: i’m already sobbing because of “long way down” and i haven’t even opened the book yet🤧