No Matter What
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Description
After a traumatic accident, a young couple tries to find their way back to each other - and themselves - in this tender, slow-burn romance by the bestselling author of Ready or Not and Promise Me Sunshine.
____________________________
Roz and Vin can't look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It's been a year since they survived a traumatic car accident and their marriage hasn't been the same.
But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things . . . until she discovers that Vin has signed a new lease.
So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: she signs up for figure drawing class.
Ignoring Vin's impending move-out date would be a lot easier if he wasn't her best-friends brother - and if he hadn't just offered to let her draw him. After all, that's known to make a separation easier, right? Focus on every detail of your estranged spouse's body while drawing them in the nude?
But after the year they've spent avoiding each other, it feels good to see and be seen by one another again. As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?
____________________________
Readers can't get enough of Cara Bastone
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'Beautifully devastating'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'Astonishingly warm, funny, reassuring, and soul-satisfying'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'I always devours everything Cara writes'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'This story and these characters showed up right when I needed them most. They are stamped on my heart, mind, and soul-forever'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'This story. These characters. Perfection.'
Book Information
Posts
3.5 - 3.75 Oh, this rating pains me. And I have conflicting feelings. When I saw the announcement of this book and that it was a married couple-second chance, I was like YES, LETS GO, THIS WILL BE GOOD. I was ready to be emotionally destroyed and then healed again. But this didn’t really happen. There are a couple of reasons why No Matter What didn’t work completely for me. One is probably my own fault, because I went into this book with a certain set of expectations and the book just wasn’t what I expected & wanted it to be and there’s really nothing to be done about it. I wanted sad, emotional, devastating, crying, grieving, heartbreak, but the general tone of the book was so casual, easy and happy? Not sad, not devastating. Definitely not the level of heartbreak I was anticipating. And this was matched with a writing style that, while good and actually very fitting for Roz & Vin’s, but especially Roz’s, personality, also didn’t work for me. The way Roz & Vin worked through their issues in the first half of the book was a bit frustrating. There was both miscommunication and no communication. Vin himself isn’t really that talkative type of guy, especially in the beginning. He barely can put together a sentence and correct Roz in her false assumptions and that might be because of the accident, but the things he wanted to say didn’t really need a lot of words? This would have saved so much time & space in the book for other stuff. Roz was frustrated with him and so was I. I will say though that Vin got better with his communication throughout the book and I think that was actually really well done. There were some really lovely moments between Roz & Vin, which 100% hit that little spot of feeling *feelings* that I was craving. There was a really big chunk in the second half, where both *actually* talked about their issues, thoughts & feelings with mutual understanding of their respective communication skills and how they will move forward in this new way of living after their accident. Very early in the book, Roz stumbles upon a drawing class and signs up for lessons. This class and its students/participants became a big part of Roz’s storyline. I liked the people we got to meet through the class! There were really great characters and worked well for the plot. I can see, or at least I think I can see, how drawing and the classes helped Roz navigate herself and her relationship with Vin. I don’t think the drawing itself did anything for me though and I don’t know if I would have connected more to this part of the story, if it were another hobby. There’s a note at the end of the book explaining the author’s choice of why Roz turned to drawing and *why* drawing in the first place. It may or may not make sense to read this before starting the book. This is sort of the complete opposite of Promise Me Sunshine (which I loooooved), in almost every way, and I think with the right mindset and knowing what I know now, in some alternate universe, I probably would have enjoyed this book more & rated it higher. I still would recommend giving No Matter What a go. Thank you Headline Eternal for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Description
After a traumatic accident, a young couple tries to find their way back to each other - and themselves - in this tender, slow-burn romance by the bestselling author of Ready or Not and Promise Me Sunshine.
____________________________
Roz and Vin can't look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It's been a year since they survived a traumatic car accident and their marriage hasn't been the same.
But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things . . . until she discovers that Vin has signed a new lease.
So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: she signs up for figure drawing class.
Ignoring Vin's impending move-out date would be a lot easier if he wasn't her best-friends brother - and if he hadn't just offered to let her draw him. After all, that's known to make a separation easier, right? Focus on every detail of your estranged spouse's body while drawing them in the nude?
But after the year they've spent avoiding each other, it feels good to see and be seen by one another again. As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?
____________________________
Readers can't get enough of Cara Bastone
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'Beautifully devastating'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'Astonishingly warm, funny, reassuring, and soul-satisfying'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'I always devours everything Cara writes'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'This story and these characters showed up right when I needed them most. They are stamped on my heart, mind, and soul-forever'
¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿ 'This story. These characters. Perfection.'
Book Information
Posts
3.5 - 3.75 Oh, this rating pains me. And I have conflicting feelings. When I saw the announcement of this book and that it was a married couple-second chance, I was like YES, LETS GO, THIS WILL BE GOOD. I was ready to be emotionally destroyed and then healed again. But this didn’t really happen. There are a couple of reasons why No Matter What didn’t work completely for me. One is probably my own fault, because I went into this book with a certain set of expectations and the book just wasn’t what I expected & wanted it to be and there’s really nothing to be done about it. I wanted sad, emotional, devastating, crying, grieving, heartbreak, but the general tone of the book was so casual, easy and happy? Not sad, not devastating. Definitely not the level of heartbreak I was anticipating. And this was matched with a writing style that, while good and actually very fitting for Roz & Vin’s, but especially Roz’s, personality, also didn’t work for me. The way Roz & Vin worked through their issues in the first half of the book was a bit frustrating. There was both miscommunication and no communication. Vin himself isn’t really that talkative type of guy, especially in the beginning. He barely can put together a sentence and correct Roz in her false assumptions and that might be because of the accident, but the things he wanted to say didn’t really need a lot of words? This would have saved so much time & space in the book for other stuff. Roz was frustrated with him and so was I. I will say though that Vin got better with his communication throughout the book and I think that was actually really well done. There were some really lovely moments between Roz & Vin, which 100% hit that little spot of feeling *feelings* that I was craving. There was a really big chunk in the second half, where both *actually* talked about their issues, thoughts & feelings with mutual understanding of their respective communication skills and how they will move forward in this new way of living after their accident. Very early in the book, Roz stumbles upon a drawing class and signs up for lessons. This class and its students/participants became a big part of Roz’s storyline. I liked the people we got to meet through the class! There were really great characters and worked well for the plot. I can see, or at least I think I can see, how drawing and the classes helped Roz navigate herself and her relationship with Vin. I don’t think the drawing itself did anything for me though and I don’t know if I would have connected more to this part of the story, if it were another hobby. There’s a note at the end of the book explaining the author’s choice of why Roz turned to drawing and *why* drawing in the first place. It may or may not make sense to read this before starting the book. This is sort of the complete opposite of Promise Me Sunshine (which I loooooved), in almost every way, and I think with the right mindset and knowing what I know now, in some alternate universe, I probably would have enjoyed this book more & rated it higher. I still would recommend giving No Matter What a go. Thank you Headline Eternal for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.