If a book can hold my attention and I can finish it in a day, it must be pretty good. I like reading about relationships and this was a woozy.

Tallie Clark, a licensed therapist, quickly stopped her car after spotting a man, Emmett Aaron Baker, on the edge of a tall bridge in Louisville getting ready to jump. Her instincts went in gear. She immediately stopped her car and got close enough to try to convince him otherwise. As a therapist, her goal was always "to help people be kinder to themselves and others; to make the world a safer, sweeter place" and she felt like she was doing her job.

She somehow managed to convince him to go to a coffee shop and talk. And yet she calculated her responses carefully not giving him a hint on what she did for a living. She was 40 years old, married once but now single. He, too, just happened to be single, a little younger and good looking. It wasn't easy for her to get him to open up but little by little, he told her things. And she shared bits and pieces about her life as well. Then the story got a little more interesting.

All along, I was hoping for Tallie and Emmett to fall in love and be happy together. That's what the all American love story is all about. But we also know that unexpected things can happen. Overall, I enjoyed this book. The author made the words flow like a fast moving river as the characters came alive.

I will look forward to reading other books by Leesa Cross-Smith in the future.

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1.5 Stars rounded up to 2

I gotta say, it's hard to enjoy a book when you detest the main character.

Tallie and Emmett were really difficult to like because their behaviour was a mix of inappropriate, unprofessional, unacceptable and invasive. I probably should have dnf'd at 4% when I could tell I would find Tallie a tad annoying but I pushed through. I went in expecting a more moving story but alas this was not the case.

CW: Suicide and depression wife committed suicide by carbon monoxide in a car but left door open to house and her child also died, cheating, false imprisonment, infertility, grief, injury in fire

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Very moving story about two people finding each other at the moment they needed to. ( )

If a book can hold my attention and I can finish it in a day, it must be pretty good. I like reading about relationships and this was a woozy.

Tallie Clark, a licensed therapist, quickly stopped her car after spotting a man, Emmett Aaron Baker, on the edge of a tall bridge in Louisville getting ready to jump. Her instincts went in gear. She immediately stopped her car and got close enough to try to convince him otherwise. As a therapist, her goal was always "to help people be kinder to themselves and others; to make the world a safer, sweeter place" and she felt like she was doing her job.

She somehow managed to convince him to go to a coffee shop and talk. And yet she calculated her responses carefully not giving him a hint on what she did for a living. She was 40 years old, married once but now single. He, too, just happened to be single, a little younger and good looking. It wasn't easy for her to get him to open up but little by little, he told her things. And she shared bits and pieces about her life as well. Then the story got a little more interesting.

All along, I was hoping for Tallie and Emmett to fall in love and be happy together. That's what the all American love story is all about. But we also know that unexpected things can happen. Overall, I enjoyed this book. The author made the words flow like a fast moving river as the characters came alive.

I will look forward to reading other books by Leesa Cross-Smith in the future.

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Tallie is driving home when she sees a man about to jump off a bridge into the Ohio River; she pulls over, talks him down, and takes him out for coffee. Emmett (not his real name) goes home with Tallie and stays the weekend, still planning to jump, even though he feels better. Tallie is a licensed therapist, but tells Emmett she's an English teacher; Emmett has a tragic back story, revealed later in the book. Tallie is also healing: after five rounds of infertility treatments, her husband left her for his mistress, and they now have a baby.

Tallie and Emmett talk, cook, open up to each other (some), and go to Tallie's brother's famous Halloween party, where an accident exposes parts of their true life stories to each other.

See also: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Quotes

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He wanted it to. He wanted everything to matter, but nothing did. Grief had swung open a door in his heart he hadn't known was there, and it'd slammed closed behind him. (28)

"It's baffling how you can think you know someone and not know them at all." (35)

He imagined Joel would've had to split himself in two to ever love them both. (42)

Grief was so tedious, and his own death was the only escape from it. (91)

He took on other people's emotions, absorbed them without wanting to, like an abandoned sponge. (128)

Humans could feel a million different ways at the same time. It wasn't like one emotion politely cleared out to make way for another. Most often they smudged together like daubs of paint, mixing and making new colors and feelings altogether. (276)

She felt as if she could reach out and touch the black velvet darkness. She wanted to snatch it back like a curtain and reveal another world where this wasn't happening. (278)

After love, forgiveness is the strongest glue holding every family together. (290)

"You have to do things when you have a chance to do them." (291)

The stabby math of grief would never add up. It would always be as if Christine and Brenna had gone on a long trip without him, never to return. (302) ( )