Recommended: sure
For a low-key sad love story, for teen caretaker stories, for grief and trauma and pain

Thoughts:
This is one of those books where even though characters are in and around love of all kinds, it sort of breaks your heart the whole way through. It's not often a buoyant, easy love of light. It's a quieter, maybe more desperate love tinged with their shared histories and pain. A perfect quote to sum up the vibe:

Scratches give it character. Nothing in life comes out unscathed.

As you can probably guess from the title, there's a good amount of tension in their interactions given the six times they almost kiss. It's told in two timelines, with the current-day taking up some of it, and the reflections on past near-kisses and other dominating events alternating in. This worked for me in this story because it broke up some of the fear and worry of the current-day narrative with their moms getting surgery.

If you think there's going to be some lightness from the "forced proximity" trope, you're wrong. It was still a bit dark and hurtful in ways. Neither character embodied or created that themselves, but their situations just sucked for each of them. It felt like one was wrapped in thorns, and the other in barbed wire, and any attempt they made to free themselves or help the other just ended up making things worse for both of them. Yo, it was really hard to read. Was this book meant to be this sad?

The cover is misleading too, as cute as it is. This book deals with heavy, difficult topics. Like death, and depression, and chronic illness, and caretaking fatigue, and poverty, and homophobia, and class poverty, and blame, and like a million other things. They're all tied up in each other so much that it doesn't feel like it's trying to take on too much at once, but damn it was not an easy read for me.

All this is not to say the book is bad, or I didn't like it, or it shouldn't be read. It's just... know what you're going into. It's more bittersweet than just sweet, and the road there is not easy. For all that it covers, it's remarkably well done.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown Books for a free advanced copy. This is my honest review.  ( )

* I got this book for review*
I really did enjoy this book. I think the formate and concept of this book was the higlight. I also think the focus on grief and conplex family dynamics is super important to this novel. I also liked the mixed media elemenets that helped felsh out this world. I also did enjoy the romance but this character voices were a bit to simialr for me to feel conneceted to them. I also liked all the side characters, but felt like they did not get the concluson i wanted! ( )

* I got this book for review*
I really did enjoy this book. I think the formate and concept of this book was the higlight. I also think the focus on grief and conplex family dynamics is super important to this novel. I also liked the mixed media elemenets that helped felsh out this world. I also did enjoy the romance but this character voices were a bit to simialr for me to feel conneceted to them. I also liked all the side characters, but felt like they did not get the concluson i wanted! ( )

Penny and Tate basically grew up with each other, their moms being best friends. There has always been a push-pull with them, not friends, not enemies. There's also been electricity between them that they find ways of denying.

That all comes to a head when Tate and her mom, Anna, move in with Penny and her mom, Lottie. Lottie is donating part of her liver to Anna and, medical expenses being what they are, they can't afford two apartments.

Can Penny and Tate survive together under one roof, avoiding the feelings they have for each other? This was a really fun book to read. I highly recommend it. ( )