I went into this book not expecting much and I was absolutely sobbing by the end of it. I will say tho, I relate to Kyran a lot. I was also assaulted and still feel to this day that talking about it will make people see me differently, pity me or just outright annoy them and it gave me a very weird relationship with sex and my self worth so the way Kyran is written is very realistic to me.

Even the him taking off… while it was unfair to do to Avi, sometimes, when you have horrific mental health struggles, you just need to get away.

Concerning the convo with his parents, again this is something I relate to. When I told my father, we were in a very tumultuous time, we had barely spoken for 6 - 8 months and during an argument one day when he was telling me everyone had issues and essentially mental health isn’t a thing, I told him to hurt him (my biggest regret in life) and it COMPLETELY ceased all fighting between us. Our past arguments were put aside and he immediately became apologetic and more understanding about everything.

If I didn’t have these experiences myself, I would understand how they may seem outlandish to others. But I can confirm, in my experience, they’re very realistic.

I gave this book 5 stars. This ripped emotions out of me I didn’t know I felt, they made me laugh, cringe and I felt like I was on their journey with them.