Spoilers Ahead:
What can I say about this book? First of all, wow. I wasn’t expecting to be so emotionally invested in the story. It was recommended to me by, of course, TikTok, and I love self-sabotaging so I had to read it, even though it was apparently a very emotional read. Well, the emotional read was certainly delivered! 

Autumn and Phineas (or Finny, as she calls him) have been friends since children. Their mothers were best friends, and so were they. They did everything together, and it was just them against the world. As they grew older, Autumn became more popular, and Finny didn’t, and they slowly grew apart. He kissed her once, but she wasn’t ready, and even though them growing apart had nothing to do with the kiss, he thought it was for all those years. 

Funny then becomes the popular one, and Autumn falls out with the popular cheerleader girls she’s friends with. Her and her other best friend, Sasha, join another group. They’re called the ‘misfits’, and soon everyone in the group has paired off. Autumn and Sasha both like the same boy, Jamie, but he chooses Autumn, and they get together. 

It stays like that for a while. Within the friendship group, there are a lot of different issues that they overcome, such as a pregnancy in the group, and several breakups. They make their way through the highs and lows of school, all the way through until they graduate. 

During the last few years of school, Autumn’s parents divorce. She was expecting it, but she also wasn’t at the same time, and she fell to be quite depressed. She couldn’t get out of bed, and small tasks were an issue, and she couldn’t find the motivation to write - she loved writing, and wanted to be a famous author. Jamie didn’t approve of her being an author, wanted her to be a teacher, but she had to put herself first. 

After graduation, Autumn is shocked to find out that Jamie has been cheating on her with Sasha. He says it is because she is too depressed. She cuts them both off, and spends a few days in her room, before her mother brings Finny around to help her. They start going out to eat, and spending a lot of time together. She meets Finny’s other best friend, Jack, who warns her not to mess him up again. She writes a book about her feelings for Finny, which she’s had for a long while. He reads it, and they talk it out, and he tells her he’s like her for years, although he tried to get over her after the kiss. He goes to break up with Sylvia, but they’re involved in a car accident. It’s raining, and she ends up through the windshield, and he passed away next to her. Autumn takes a while to deal with it, and she TW attempts to commit suicide, wanting to be with him. She somehow still lives, and find out she’s pregnant, so stays alive for his baby, thinking it is a part of him that will remain with her forever. 

Now that I’ve finished this book, I realise that although I enjoyed the book, the ending is actually very rushed. 

I hated Jamie with an absolute burning passion, right from the very start. I don’t know why I didn’t like him at the start, I don’t know whether it was because he wasn’t Finny, or what, but I just didn’t like him. And then my dislikening for him just grew throughout the book. The way he was so controlling over Autumn, like wanting her to do a job that he wanted, I could have punched a wall. And I had a feeling something would happen between him and Sasha, and I was right, I just wasn’t expecting to wait so long to read about it. 

I know that the whole book was about them growing up, and I did like that, I liked seeing them grow up, especially Autumn who had the same sort of experience with depression as me, so I really related to her. However, I think that if, as they say, throughout the whole time they were with other people they loved each other, then one, it’s not fair on their partners, and two, most of the plot seems a little drawn on. It was unnecessary to keep Autumn and Jamie’s relationship going for as long as it did, and at some points it got tedious. Hearing about how he was controlling her and she was letting him do that whilst not even in love with him (she was, I guess, in love with him in her own way) is just very annoying, personally. Same for Finny and Sylvia. 

The ending was also very inadequate, especially compared to the rest of the book. It was over so quickly. We never got to see how Autumn was affected, barring the TW suicide attempt. I wanted to see how Autumn was, how Sylvia was, how the Mothers were. It seemed to spend an awful lot of time on them being with others whilst pining for each other, then an actual, life-changing event. I don’t know, I would have just liked to have seen how people were affected, even though it was already very sad. 

I did like the representation of depression, and Autumn’s inability to accept she has it because she thinks other people are worse off. I thought it was a very accurate representation, and I thought that was quite beautiful. I also loved Finny’s character so much. I grew so attached to him, I genuinely feel so upset that he didn’t have enough time. Right person, not enough time tropes are so good but they hit me so hard. The friends to lovers trope was so good as well, especially childhood friends. I just wish there was less time spent on them not being together, and more time in the aftermath of the accident, although I suppose that’s what makes it so bittersweet.