Reminders of Him

Within the second sentence, we are slightly introduced to the tragedy that occurred when someone called Scotty died and Kenna was convicted of something. What that is yet? I don't really know, but from the rest of the page, I can gather that it has something to do with Scotty dying, and Kenna being there when he died (although her involvement seems to be no involvement at all instead of an action that caused his death) although all we actually know is that she pled guilty because her feelings of guilt, and not wanting to have to relive whatever it was that happened, rather than her actually being guilty of a crime. Her focus at the start seems to be on things that really don't matter, and she even delays her cab driver to fix something that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. While that may seem mundane, and as if it doesn't matter, to me it is almost like she is trying to distract herself from inevitably seeing her daughter, and how she probably knows that the people who took her in, in the meantime, are going to act once she returns. I do hope that in the end not only has she healed, but she has also got her daughter back, because (and I don't know if this is an actual adoption) sometimes it can be better for a child to stay with their adopted family, and it doesn't seem like what happened was much of Kenna's fault either. Honestly, it is probably the part of the book that I am most hesitant about, and one of the main reasons I have put off reading this book for a few weeks (the other is that I have exactly 45 books to read, not including this one, which might be causing some of that delay. Who knows, though, could be anything).

She moves into a pretty bad apartment, one that doesn't even have a contract written up, and the rent is paid in cash. Not only is she struggling to come up with the amount needed to pay the deposit, which is needed soon, but she is also entrusted a kitten to look after by the landlord, who seems a not very nice person. Going and doing things like giving the kitten to someone who just moved in, not writing up contracts, and not really seeming to put any care at all in the rotation of tenants.

I wasn't expecting more than one POV, and at one time in my life I would have hated that there is more than one point of view, but now I relish it. Seeing the POV of another character, and not only being able to see their view of situations that occur in the book, but also their world view and how they differ from the other character we are able to see.

I think that there is more of a connection between Kenna and Ledger than I first imagined. I had thought that the link mentioned in the description would only be something like, he was acquainted with the people now looking after her daughter, or someone he knew was a friend, not that he was close enough to interact with her. He talked about how he was playing dress up with a little kid, someone who was suspiciously 4 years old, the same age that Kenna's daughter would be (she spent 5 years in prison and had her kid in there). You can see the effect that being in prison has had on Kenna as she ends up crying at something as simple as a cup of coffee from a bar.

But what did surprise me was that Ledger was someone she knew of before she went to prison. Ledger was Scotty's best friend that she never ended up meeting as he didn't show up to meet them when he was supposed to. And just as she learns this he kisses her, which is just two massive shocks after the other. It is the first time that she has kissed someone that she was actually attracted to, and yet just before that, the bombshell that he dropped has reduced her to tatters. Much more than any kiss would be able to.

Kenna is constantly writing new letters to Scotty, although most of them, so far, have been about how her past is affecting her feelings in the present. Giving this gateway to the past is something that Colleen loves to do and has done in her most popular book, 'It Ends With Us'. I liked how it worked in that one, and I am liking how it is working in this one because I am already starting to feel the loss of Scotty as we are getting to see him through her eyes, and linking him to the current time that we are in. We do get some insight into how Scotty and Kenna first met, and how much of a whirlwind romance it was as he literally broke up with his girlfriend after asking her out, which is why he ends up turning up late. There is also the reference to the future, as she is going to meet Scotty's parents for the first time since his release, and he has previously commented on the fact that his mother liked his old girlfriend, but how Kenna wasn't the kind of girl that his mother would love.

One thing that I think is going to have a massively negative effect on everything, including any sort of trust she is able to build up between Grace and Patrick (Scotty's parents), is that they will wrongly assume that she is maliciously trying to get to Diem, her daughter (I think that Ledger might think this as well) through Ledger and that she isn't meant to be trusted at all. As we can see inside her head we know that she can be trusted, but because they can't there is no world that they trust her straight away, especially since they don't know the full story of what happened, didn't like her much in the first place, and also she felt guilty so didn't defend herself from all the accusations.

And as she is going to see Grace and Patrick, hoping that they will let her see her daughter she comes across Ledger, and he realises who she is, incorrectly assuming that she knew who he was when they first met, and dragging her over to his house, telling her that he is going to drive her home. He is obviously very annoyed and still, based on what he knows about how Scotty died, is entitled to be angry over what happened. Later Roman, thank god for him, puts things into perspective to give him an idea of how hard Kenna's life has been so far. Not only has she lost the man she loved, but she is convicted on manslaughter charges, sent to prison while pregnant, gives birth to the child and then stays there for 5 years until she is able to come back and meet her child. Yes, on the information he knows it might be hard to see her in any other light than that, but she is a human too, and it isn't like she murdered anyone or intentionally did anything to harm someone, even from his perspective.

Luckily Ledger isn't heartless and actually realises that if he has everything wrong about Kenna because he had assumed that she was a cold and heartless person, then what if she is just a grieving mother who has no one to rely on, and no one to care about her so he gets in his truck and actually goes back over to her place to check up on her. I am glad that I didn't have to start skipping and of the Ledger parts, as if he had been too callous on that part I wasn't sure if I would be able to handle it if it was resolved without him facing some kind of retribution in accordance to how little he cared about someone who cares too much.

Kenna didn't have a good home life when she was younger, having been taken away twice and put into foster care until her mother could win custody back and prove that she was a fit parent to parent her again. Although Once Kenna realised how bad her mother was they basically stopped having a relationship, although Kenna did contact her once when she found out that she was going to be losing her baby to request that her mother applies for grandparent visitation rights so that she could at least see her child once she got out, and instead of any sort of comfort or agreement, or even a compromise, she basically laughed in her face and said that since she didn't get a thank you from Kenna for getting her back from the foster sister (like it wasn't entirely her fault in the first place that she was even there) that Kenna now deserves to experience the same kind of pain, although Kenna's mother doesn't actually know what pain is since she thinks that the world revolves around her, and she thinks that consequences don't apply to her either.

Kenna does get to see her daughter, although it is only through videos, and as we see it from Ledger's point of view instead of Kenna's it is even more heartbreaking. Watching her break down as she watches these videos, a mother who has never been able to see the child that she and her first love created, knowing how much of a horrible person her own mother was towards her and how she wanted to be a better person for her daughter but hasn't got to apply that yet.

The romance between Kenna and Ledger is like a rollercoaster. It is up, and down constantly and sometimes not even they know, really, what they're doing, but they still do it. This romantic interest brings forth Ledger's ability to trust that she is being authentic and it starts to get to a point where he is taking back almost everything he said and assumed about Kenna. He even retracts his statement, although this is only in his thoughts and not something he rectified to her, that having her in her daughter's life wouldn't bring Diem any benefits. He now believes that to be untrue and that no one, especially him, isn't in any place to judge whether a mother is fit for her child.

The sex scene, which is an accumulation of all the feelings that they have had, is pretty meh and I think some of the words used, like, 'We moved to a new position and somehow he was able to stab me deeper' is, like, not very nice sounding at all. I get that she was trying to not fall completely into the new adult territory and that she was interested in finding a balance between the YA sex scenes and the NA sex scenes but sentences like those just aren't it, like come on.

And then we move on to the next part of the story, which is where we can finally learn what actually happened that night, and what Kenna's side of the story is (which is the only one that matters since she is the only one who knows what really happened). It all makes sense too, from the point where they took 12 beers, and went drinking by the lake, which was one of their favourite things to do, and then since Scotty was more drunk than Kenna she drove. They were on a gravel road, and Scotty told Kenna to slow down a bit, but since she wasn't expecting him to speak so loudly she ended up slamming on the brakes which caused the car to flip and Kenna to fall into complete shock. I wouldn't be surprised if she had also been suffering from a concussion too, as when she thought that Scotty was dead, couldn't find their phones to call help and tried to kill herself 3 different times, she woke up back home on the floor with blood on her head, her blood. Not having anyone in her corner, and having her partner's parents only having a bad impression of her because of some coincidences, meant that she was all alone during this time and could only try and deal with the shocking incident on her own, which is the worst way possible for her, specifically, to deal with this situation. I don't blame her at all for this, as not only did she not kill anyone by hitting them while driving (and her passenger was more than willing to drive while even drunker) but all the bad things joined together at the exact wrong moment and she was left without anything and anyone to help her.

Patrick and Grace end up finding out, and not only does Patrick beat Ledger up, but he also gives him an ultimatum of Diem, or Kenna and after Kenna learns about this she forces Ledger to pick Diem. Ledger isn't going to just give up on her that easily, thank god, and he shows them the letter about the night Scotty died and about how it happened and then we switch to Kenna's POV where not only does Ledge come over, but Grace also comes over, which is, of course, shocking to her, and they end up talking. Now, knowing what Kenna had gone through and knowing that she can stop the pain Kenna is experiencing, she wants her to see Diem. Patrick is also on board and it is anti-climatic, but I think that works as that are how it would be in real life, especially with a child as hyperactive as Diem. It is only then that Kenna is able to forgive herself for what happened and move past every memory of Scotty bringing back the sadness and pain that she was always experiencing before.

And the final epilogue acknowledges that she doesn't need to write to him as much because she doesn't feel the need to explain everything to Scotty as if she is guilty of all actions even while he isn't alive. I think it ends in the perfect place, with Diem knowing that she is her mother but still living mostly with Patrick and Grace (although I am sure that she will want to live with her mother when she gets old enough for it to matter more) and then we get to the final part, where before it had taken months for her to come up with a name for Diem, and even Iy her cat, it took her three days. But now, with her new baby boy placed onto her chest, she is able to know what name to call him straight away. 'Scotty'.

Overall this book wasn't at the pinnacle of writing prowess, it had very in-depth characters but it wasn't made up of the most complex ever seen but what this book had, and is probably the best out of all the books I have read thus far, is the emotional heartstrings that it tugs and how much anxiousness is created at all times because you just want her to get her child back and be in her life. I was struggling to put this book down, but I was also having to take short breaks to make sure that I wasn't putting myself in too much duress. This is the exact kind of story that I hate but love at the same time because it is about a mother who is being kept from her child unfairly, and it isn't even like the people who are keeping her are bad people, they really aren't, and that only adds another layer to the story as who don't really know what to feel.

This book was great, and while I don't think that people will objectively agree with the rating I am going to give it, the fact that it was able to hit me that deeply, while being well written, while having deep characters, while having a story that makes sense is just something that I cannot ignore. This is the exact kind of book that I would usually avoid as I know how much it would annoy me, but that is only because I know that if it is written well, then I am going to be emotionally wrecked and it is going to be hard to read another book for a little while without comparing it to this one.

9.5/10