Several triggers in the story for me: playing in the woods all day in summer, grieving the early death of someone you thought would live long enough to make up for the times you had been distant from each other, a person contemplating death and leaving messages for the living.
Fourteen must be the age when you experience a fundamental life change that affects the rest of your existence. My brothers and I were out in the woods next to our suburban neighborhood surrounded by cornfields and livestock. We moved to a new school district and bigger house when I was 13 and life was good until our parents separated right before Christmas a week after the younger of my brothers broke his femur in a sledding accident. He was hospitalized for six weeks in traction, then home in a body cast for six more weeks. That summer Mom moved back in for a few months before they called it quits for good. Life became an empty existence stuck in a time warp where school and my best friend and books have some semblance of normality to my life until the next inevitable changes out of my control buffeted me wiping away all of my dreams and threatening the replacement dreams I held closer and more privately.
Another move to a different state. A surprise marriage to my father after a three week courtship to a woman we were introduced to as they were headed back to his bedroom. The introduction went "this is Herself. We were going to get married tonight, but we couldn't find someone to do it, so we're getting married tomorrow. Good night." And they got married and lived happily ever after until my father developed an aggressive form of lung cancer 19 years later.
Dad had taken early retirement two years previously from a stressful civilian job with the military. He started to loosen up and make plans for the future which included reconnecting with his children and getting to know his grandchildren who were moving quickly towards their teens. All was abandoned for rounds of chemo and radiation to prolong his life long enough for my stepmother to realize that there would not be a miracle cure. He got to say some good byes and take care of some loose ends, but he didn't want to die. In our last phone conversation, he told me that he was grateful to be had made it to age 60, because he hated the idea of dying in his 50's.
There was no will. He consciously left everything to his wife, but he had promised me one token in remembrance. I always thought how he might have gone through his things while his wife was at work with a pad of post it's and left little messages to her telling her he'd like to see this or that go to him or her or explain to her the provenance of the object (a la Dead Notes). To my knowledge, he didn't do that. I never got the bamboo fly rod I watched him make as a child that he had promised me. The last time I saw his wife was at his 15 minute memorial service. I called her a couple weeks later on what would have been their 22nd wedding anniversary to check on her and let her know we were thinking of her. She was hateful to me as always. I never spoke to her again.
So the Dead Notes (what a terrific vehicle for healing!) ... I'm so disappointed that it is a product of your creative imagination. I was going to search the internet to find it, but, alas, not necessary now. I loved the premise and the supernatural aspects of communications.
I saw my dad visit his memorial service. Nothing can shake me from that belief. He beamed himself down into a chair across the room. He was laughing and smiled at me across the room before beaming back up. He was having fun trying out his new skills.
My stepmother/his wife died a couple of years ago at age 66 after an increasingly lonely and sad life and left a particularly gruesome legacy. She was a hoarder but an obsessive compulsive hoarder. She had a huge house stacked and organized and labeled with all my dad's cum her belongs mingled with her grandmother's belongings, her parents ' belongings, and her own things. She had kept everything. She died on some unrecorded date and was found some time later (perhaps two weeks or a week later) by the police in response to a call from the neighbors about an odor emanating from the house. Most of her cache was unmanageable according to the older of my brothers who helped with the clean up/salvage operation. Her niece's husband's contracting company was in charge of the operation. Everything is fine to the landfill or somewhere else. Anything I would have wanted is no more and that is okay now.
I adored the way the author unfolded the love story between Kali and Aiden. The erotic scenes are exquisite. The angst surrounding their coming together. The friends who save them from despair. The determination to learn from Kyle's untimely death and to live and love whole heartedly in the future. The knowledge they gain that love we have and make lived on after us.
I have felt Dad quietly guiding me at times through the 20+ years since he died.
OR
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With the sudden death of his best friend and business partner, Aiden Edwards is left feeling lost without the man who was like a brother to him. Growing up with Kyle and Kali Anderson, the three of them were inseparable, and now that the biggest part of them is gone, there are only the two of them left to pick up the pieces of what they once shared… Kali Anderson didn’t just lose a brother, she lost the other half of her soul. At the funeral, being around Aiden again helps to soothe her and brings back memories of the great times they all shared growing up… but there was also something else that Aiden and Kali used to share that her twin did NOT approve of… ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Pretty Thing was an emotionally charged read that brought together two people who have resisted the love they have for each other for far too long. With the missing piece of their existence gone forever, all of the reasons that Aiden and Kali can’t be together suddenly don’t seem all that important anymore… Growing up as a twin was equal parts amazing and stifling for Kali. In the past few years she has moved away from her hometown and made a life for herself, away from her twin and the identity she feels she has to maintain as one half of the Anderson siblings. It isn’t until his death that Kali realizes how much she regrets leaving and the time she wasted away from the people she loves. Aiden has been hiding the feelings that he has for Kali since he was a teenager. After his BFF made it abundantly clear that Kali was strictly off limits, Aiden has done his best to avoid getting involved with Kali… which was never too hard considering her long absence from his life. And now that Kyle has left them both, they still may want to honor his memory, but they are also insurmountably angry at him for dying. And when the long overdue attraction that they have ignored over the years burns even brighter than ever, their recent loss makes them far less likely to care about Kyle would have wanted. This was a fantastic read. With the grief of losing a loved one so different for so many people, I really enjoyed Kali and Aiden’s sexy AF approach to attempting to move on within their sadness. With a super clever twist to Kyle’s time after he dies, the relationship between Kali and Aiden is a messy one, but so very worth it. I received a complimentary copy of this book for my honest and unbiased review.
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- Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2019
- Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2019
Top reviews from other countries
- NicShef❤️ReadingReviewed in Australia on April 20, 2019
Years in the making... just beautiful...
