My favorite Christina Lauren read to date, by far. It takes a lot for me to give a book five stars, and this was the perfect example. The characters charmed me, the mystery gripped me, the sad parts had me truly sobbing, the jokes had me laughing out loud, etc. etc. etc. When I finished this book, I felt like a hollowed out shell — it just wrung everything out of me in the best way. It's a second chance romance novel between Macy and Elliot who were childhood best friends/loves but who dramatically lost touch eleven years before the novel's open. When they literally run into each other in a cafe, it threatens to uproot everything in Macy's life. Now, she has to decide if the potential of their future is worth rehashing the pain of their past. This had so much love and longing, and having been written as women's fiction instead of genre romance, Christina Lauren spent so much time exploring and living in that yearning versus formulaically developing the romance plot. The story is told in a split timeline, alternating between present-day chapters, and chapters from 11+ years ago, chronicling how they met, how they became friends, and how they fell in love. The concurrent, alternating timelines means we watch their young romance develop knowing it's already doomed, hurtling towards an unknown trigger that will keep them hurting and apart for so long. It was like watching a train wreck — I knew it would be awful but I didn't want to look away. The writing was spectacular and the characters felt so real. If I had one complaint, it would be that Elliot endured something intensely traumatic, and I felt like that wasn't given the weight it deserved. Still, it's undoubtedly a 5 star from me.