It started off a bit dodgy but it got SO MUCH BETTER!! I liked Otis, he was a great character, and although some characters confused me, they were all pretty good characters.

This book was absolutely a heartwarming story all the way around! I enjoyed getting to know each of these characters during the journey through the book. While I was reading this book I felt like I could relate to the main characters the entire time. My heart broke for our narrator when we found out something had happened before the events of this book. The reason I rated it four stars is because I’m epileptic and when the author wrote something into the book making fun of a seizure I really didn’t know what to think. Otherwise I loved this one sitting wonder all the way through!

I really liked the way this book describes grief. It was very realistic and shows just how loss can impact your mental health. Otis was an interesting mc but I HATED how he would sexualize Meg for just existing. Dara was my favorite character and seeing how losing her arm impacted her life was eye-opening.

8/10

Phantom Limbs was unexpected, beautiful, and honest.

-First off, the metaphorical-ness of the title is absolutely fantastic .

-I think this book handled the topic of grief really well: how it deeply affects people, and how it will always be painful.

-Otis is very blunt and crass when it comes to describing sexual things, which resulted in it being hard to read his thoughts at times.

-I really liked Otis and Dara's friendship.
At the start of the book, it's quite unbalanced. Dara, Otis' swim coach, is really harsh, and Otis doesn't fight back.
However, throughout the course of the story, they both grow a lot, learn more about each other, and continue to be honest yet supportive of the others' decisions.

-I liked how throughout the book, Otis learns and becomes more aware of how Meg was and is affected by Mason's death (not a spoiler). He realizes how they need to lean on each other, both continuing to grieve, but still moving forward.
"But damaged doesn't necessarily mean broken."

"But broken doesn't necessarily mean damaged."

This book was a really interesting exploration of grief, trauma, and friendship, and it was written very well. I was pleasantly surprised, because when I read the synopsis I totally thought it was going to be your straight-up romance with Otis falling in love with Meg and blah blah happily ever after, but that wasn't the case.

The writing was gorgeous, and the characters really stood out - all of them were very well-written. I especially liked Dara, Otis's one-armed swim coach. She had a really big character presence and I really enjoyed her and Otis's friendship. Meg was nice too, and it was really interesting seeing this web of relationships.

Spoiler

One thing I really appreciated is that the book seemed to value friendship over romance, as Otis constantly chooses Dara over Meg. It's not something you usually see in YA.

This book wasn't that great the second time around....

3.5 stars.

3.5 Stars. another solid contemporary, but something was missing for me to *really* enjoy it. I did love the emphasis on friendship, though.

I really didn't like the main character. Like what teenage guy pins after his childhood crush for that long? I was kind of uncomfortable with how honest his inner dialogue was and I just found his narration of the events to stress me out. Like when he talks about how much he hates his crush's boyfriend, he sounded super possessive and angry.

4.5 stars. Ache and heartbreak and hope all in one.