(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Although this book isn’t the sort of genre I normally tend to read, I was quite drawn into the plot, particularly since I’m sure everyone has suffered some sort of personal loss.

Even though Oakley’s name was quite an unusual one, I found her to be a really interesting character. It was good to see her having to deal with the normal things that a teenager needed to deal with, as well as losing her brother.

The idea of having a notebook where Lucas wrote letters to his sister while he was in hospital was a pretty unique one. Even though Lucas himself didn’t appear in the book, I felt like I’d got to know him through the letters he wrote to Oakley. Some of the things he wrote made me smile, while others generated an eyeroll… but it was all coloured with a bittersweet tone, knowing that all Oakley had left of him were the letters.

I did especially like Oakley’s budding relationship with Carson. I could really believe in them together and it was interesting to see how hard Oakley found it. I actually noticed a lot of myself in her character. I also especially liked gradually learning about what she enjoyed doing, through her conversations with Carson.

It was a bit disappointing not to see more of some of the supporting characters. I wasn’t keen on Dillon apparently being more attracted to Oakley than caring about his friend… and I definitely didn’t like Oakley hinting that she found Dillon very attractive, either. Some of those descriptions made me feel like she didn’t really like Carson as much as she seemed to.

Jo was another character I would have liked to learn a bit more about. It was pretty cool to see her job and I enjoyed watching their work along with Oakley… and I was also very saddened by what happened to the sea lion.

I did like that there were other things going on around Oakley as well. I liked seeing things from her perspective, but it was good that there were some other things going on as well.

This was a book that I found quite emotionally moving to read. It was well-written and although sad in parts, there were also parts that made me smile. I would definitely be interested in reading more books by this author in the future.