How to know what your heart wants?

Synopsis

Right guy, wrong time…

Daisy’s perfectly content with her life. She’s got a job she likes, a nice enough flat, and in a relationship with childhood best friend Adam. She’s got used to the lack of fireworks – after all, you can’t put a price on friendship being the foundation of everything.

But they say you never forget your first, and Daisy has never forgotten how she felt that one summer with Zach – one electrifying, yet slightly embarrassing fumble in the dark.

The catch? Zach was also her and Adam’s best friend growing up. Now he’s back, after making his fame in Hollywood, and he has the same to-die for smile and cheeky glint in his eye… but Daisy has made her choice and it’s Adam – right?

Can Daisy follow her heart without anybody else’s hearts getting broken in the process?

My review

Daisy, Adam and Zach know each other as they grew up together. Now, Daisy is rather content with her life, as she likes her job, her nice flat she is sharing with her now boyfriend Adam. Fireworks aren’t really flying around, but friendship is the base of their relationship, so that’s good enough, right?
However, Adam hasn’t been Daisy’s first, and Daisy never really forgot that one summer, where she shared that special moment with Zach.
With Zach being back, with the fame of Hollywood behind his name, Daisy feels her world turning upside down. Because the attraction Daisy felt for Zach never left, and Zach for sure never lost his charm.
But Daisy made her choice, and it’s only right to stay with Adam, right?

I am always intrigued when a love triangle is involved. Who will get their happily ever after? And how will it affect the ‘loser’?
And this book had even an extra layer, as all the involved parties are old friends and Adam and Zach are even best friends!

Am I lying when I say we can all remember that first time? No matter how awkward, weird or even how unsatisfying it was, we all remember it, right? Even if things later ended in a bad way, we will remember that moment forever.
And that is also the case with Daisy. The relationship with Zach, as friends, was always a restrained one, as it’s clear that she cannot figure Zach out. Even at a younger age, Zach acts standoffish, cold and disinterested. But then there are moments, glimpses where she sees a different side of him, making her believe that what Zach shows isn’t who Zach truly is.

Now, I don’t know if I would have chosen that place or that situation to have that moment with Zach. But I could also understand Daisy, as when things are getting heated up, you don’t always think clearly about the circumstances. And it also saddened me to see how things got awkward afterwards, how it was being dismissed and how the real feelings weren’t spoken out. Because let there be one thing clear: there is something more to it than just lust.

I liked seeing the dynamics shift during this book, how everything seemed to be going rather okay between Daisy and Adam, but once Zach enters the scene how everything just seems to change. And this not only once, but several times over the years too.

But we also see insecurities rise over the years. Not only Daisy’s, as she doesn’t know what her heart is trying to tell her, but also Adam’s insecurities, as he feels that he is losing Daisy. But also the most cocky man, Zach shows his vulnerability in this book, opening up to Daisy for real once. And there is also the other side of being famous, as people can be with you for their own gain, or people trying to outdo you and pull you one.

I have to admit, the more the story evolved, the more my dislike for Adam and my like for Zach grew. I can understand how Adam feels with Zach back on the scene, but his behaviour is just not okay… I don’t know how Daisy put up with him, as I for sure would have slapped him more than once!
I also felt that Daisy perhaps could have been more honest about her feelings. Okay, once again, I understand her and how she doesn’t understand her herself what her feelings truly are. But admit that, there is nothing wrong with that. For me now it felt like Daisy was in a relationship with Adam because that is what was expected from her. At moments I thought that in fact Daisy never loved Adam like a partner, but merely as a good friend.

In this book, we read how complicated relationships and also feelings can be. It isn’t easy to truly understand what we feel, and what our heart wants. But it’s also about making choices, perhaps wrong ones, perhaps right ones.
And we also see that perhaps the side we see from a person, isn’t the real side of that person, but a façade created for self-preservation.
Once we allow ourselves to let our own prejudices pass, we can see someone’s true colours and understand them better. And with that understanding, we can also comprehend what our own heart has been telling us and that can perhaps make us follow our heart.