“Because life is too short to wait around on a good idea.”
I thought I was just going to read a chill, paranormal romance book. Instead, I was presented a beautiful, well-thought out story with many life changing lessons and a lot to think about in the coming months. This book will delight you and will have you staring out the window pondering about life’s meaning and our impact on this Earth.
“A life, witnessed. A life, lived.”
About the Book
Release Date: July 2, 2024
Publisher: Berkley
Pages: 384
Audiobook narrator: Sofia Oxenham
Audiobook length: 9 hours and 32 minutes
Book Summary
Delphie lives a very isolated life, by choice. She can’t fathom the idea of making friends, spending time with people, and attending big parties. Instead, she spends most of her life doing the same routine, spending time at her pharmacy job across the street from her apartment and inside her apartment. Her only human interaction is helping her neighboor, Mr. Yoon, an elderly man in the building, and sharing hateful glances at her neighbor Cooper.
But then, she dies.
In the afterlife, she makes a deal that allows her to go back to the land of the living. She has to make a man, Jonah, kiss her within the next 10 days. Otherwise, she’ll be forced to essentially die and go back to the afterlife.
“If your heart was a colour, it’d be yellow. The colour of a sunflower.”
Highlights
- I loved Aled, he is such a kind, thoughtful friend and I wish I could be friends with him!
- Frida stole my heart. She was so sweet and I wanted to tell her that everything will be alright!
- I’m so proud of Delphie for how she handled the last 3 days.
- I choked up during 2 scenes but didn’t full on cried. Still, this book stole my heart! I know I’ll be thinking about the life lessons shared in the book for many years to come.
Dislikes
- I wish the beginning of the scene in the hotel/pub was longer!
Tropes
- one bed
- found family
- ticking clock/ 10 days deadline
- fake dating
Spice
Rating 3 out of 5. This is not a clean romance book. Spicy encounters are detailed enough that you know where the hands are and what they are doing. The scenes though are extremely short, less than a page.
The Audiobook
I loved the book but I can’t say I loved the audiobook. But, it got the job done, respectfully. The narrator chose a simple style. The character voices were not very distinct from one another. I don’t mind that at all. But in sentences that had exclamation marks, the narrator wouldn’t sound it out like it. In times of urgency in the book, I didn’t feel urgency in the narrator’s voice. There were 2 times I could notice it was a new recording because of audio changes. Lastly, many times the narrator would say sentences that weren’t on the Kindle version of the book and skip sentences that were on the book. The audiobook has high ratings online, but I thought to share these in case that’s more helpful in your decision to listen to it or not.Â