Before we start: I’m writing this in a post-book hangover and I’m in the mood to discuss it rather than review it, which is to say: I’m trying to avoid spoilers but no promises. If you need a spoiler-free review, please skip this.

I first found Sarah Dessen’s books when I read The Truth About Forever and pretty much fell in love with it. And as I’ve read on, I’ve really come to enjoy the world that she’s built, with the characters and places overlapping, and most importantly, the emphasis on the protagonist rather than the romance.

So, not going to lie, I bought this book without looking at the blurb. When I finally read it, I was a bit worried because it sounded like a typical YA romance: girl in small town (Emeline) meets guy from somewhere else (Theo) and it’s the summer before she goes to college.

Thankfully, this is not the book I was thinking of. Yes, there is summer and Making It Special, but it’s mostly about Emeline and her juggling all the pieces of her life. The romance is incidental – her absent biological father (who has moved to Colby for the summer) and her stepbrother are more important, in my opinion. (Just my opinion because Theo appears a lot in the book)

And I got to say, I appreciate that Theo turned out to be different from what I expected him to be. I didn’t expect my feelings for him to slowly become more and more negative, but I did like the echoes between his relationship with Emeline and Emeline’s relationship with her biological father.

Speaking of her family, I really liked the relationship between Emeline and her immediate family! She has a step-dad and step-sisters (and she makes it clear that she regards him as a “dad” and her biological father is a “father”) and their bickering really makes them feel like real sisters. Like they will fight over everything but when push comes to shove, they have each other’s back. It’s a very realistic family dynamic in that sense.

And I’m going to double back to the romance thing and add that one thing I’ve always appreciated about Dessen’s books is that romance is not the main aim. Emeline needs to figure out what she wants and while that includes dating, the goal is not to end up in a relationship. I feel like I’ve seen this in Dessen’s other books – that while the protagonists generally do meet a new boy that opens up their world or acts as a catalyst for change, you never really feel like it is This Boy and This Relationship is that is going to fix all the problems. The protagonist is the one who’s going to fix things or accept things and the change has to come from herself.

Long story short, I finished this book in one day, got a book hangover, and now I really, really want to reread the Sarah Dessen books I have. But they are in another country so this will have to wait for another month.