First, a huge thank you to Berkley Romance and Ashley Poston for sending me an eARC to read and review! 🥺 I so thoroughly enjoyed myself, and this really got me out of my reading slump!“you don’t ever lose the sadness, but you learn to love it because it becomes a part of you, and bit by bit, it fades. And, eventually, you’ll pick yourself back up and you’ll find that you’re okay. That you’re going to be okay. And eventually, it’ll be true”Knowing just how much I LOVED Ashley’s Geekerella series, as soon as I heard she was debuting her adult RomCom, with speculative elements, I knew I had to read it! And she did not disappoint. Ashley Poston knows how to handle grief so beautifully in her stories. It’s real, and it’s raw, while also so hopeful. I feel like grief is often portrayed as this heavy, terrible thing that weighs us down, keeping us from life. And yes, that is a part of it. But through this story, Ashley shows us how much more to it there is. Grief is love. Love for the people who have left us—which doesn’t end when they’re gone, we take it with us. Love for the people we still have—who make it easier to get through. Ashley shows also how joy and grief can live simultaneously, and it’s ok to feel all these things at once. That death is sad, but it’s also a celebration of life.“Love wasn’t a whisper in the quiet night. It was a yelp into the void, screaming that you were here.”This was also, of course, at it’s core a love story. Florence and Ben are honestly just so perfect for each other! I loved how their relationship developed. Their banter and wit, their chemistry. Do you know how engaging chemistry has to be when they LITERALLY CANT TOUCH BECAUSE HE’S A GHOST?! 🤣 It is not easy to do, but Ashley made it seem easy. I was hooked on them from their first meeting, and I absolutely loved the way it ended. I will be dreaming of Ben and Florence for a long time to come.“Worth wasn’t dependent on someone else’s love for you, or your usefulness, or what you could do for them.”Lastly, in this story, Ashley just so eloquently put to words so many things I struggle with myself. Learning how to unlearn that your worth depends on what you can do for other people, rather than just *being*. Learning how to let others in, let others help you, let them love you. Even if you feel you don’t deserve it, because you do. Learning not to let people walk over you, or use your kindness and your love against you either. I loved all the little tidbits about the publishing industry, and the things no one likes to talk about. Authors who are amazing writers but don’t “make it” because they don’t have the right recourses. How so many writers define their worth by their success, but the only thing that matters is their words finding the people who need to hear them. I truly cannot wait to read whatever comes next to Ashley, because I know I will love it.“…we popped champagne and played Dad’s favorite burned CD and danced through the parlors to all the good goodbyes, because endings were just new beginnings.”