When the love for one person makes your forget the hate for another…

Synopsis

Becca and Charlie have known each other since university.
Becca and Charlies have also hated each other since university.

Until now. Until Ally’s bucket list. The death of their loved one should mean they can go their separate ways and not look back. But completing the list is something neither of them can walk away from.

And sometimes, those who bring out the worst in you, also bring out the very best…

Over the course of ten years, Becca and Charlie’s paths collide as they deal with grief, love and life after Ally.

Not since Emma and Dex in One Day and Will and Lou in Me Before You will you root for a couple as much.

My review

Becca and Charlie have hated each other since university. The only thing that held them together was Ally, Becca’s best friend and Charlie’s fiancée.
But unfortunately, Ally passed away, leaving the both of them heart – broken. Only silver lining would be that now Becca and Charlie can live their own lives, far away from each other. That is, until they learn about Ally’s bucket list she wanted Becca and Charlie to complete together for her.
Over the course of ten years, they complete one item of the list on a yearly base together. And meanwhile, they learn to deal with strong emotions like grief, loss, love while they also have a life after Ally… 

When I started reading this book, I knew I would be on a rollercoaster of emotions. But did I expect to find myself in tears just after the first chapters? Not at all! Was that the last moment I was crying while reading? Absolutely not!
So be warned when you start reading this book, waterworks will be turned on! 

In life, you have people you love, and some people you hate. There may be a logical reason for the hate, or not, but it can be rather easy to avoid those people.
That isn’t in Becca’s case. She knows Charlie since university, and she knows what kind of person he was, and she just doesn’t like him. Unfortunately, her best friend Ally fell in love with him, so Becca still had to endure his presence, for Ally’s sake. And the feeling was totally mutual, as Charlie loved Ally with whole his heart, but had to accept that Becca would be part of his life too…
But their unconditional love for Ally made them ready to thick of items of her bucket list, eve if that meant to still be in each other’s life, even if it were for one day per year… 

What I liked about this book, but at the same time also frustrated me a little bit, is that we see the whole ten years. Frustrating, because we knew what endgame we wanted to have, but also knowing it would take so long!
Liking it, because we see how both characters, with their own demons to face, mature in all these years. 

The items of Ally’s bucket list weren’t always my cup of tea, neither Becca’s or Charlie’s, as they couldn’t be more opposite. When Charlie was having a blast, for Becca is was torture, and the other way around. But no matter what the initial feeling at the start of the task was, we saw how Becca and Charlie could see the allure of each task, even if they wouldn’t choose it for themselves. 

In ten years, people change. It can be a big change or rather small ones. And because of the length of years, we see the change of the main characters, yet also managing to stay true to themselves. The more years pass, the better we understand Becca and Charlie.

The author managed also greatly in showing all the ups and downs in life. Both Becca and Charlie move on after losing Ally, cooping with their grief in different ways and times. We see how Becca still hangs on to Ally’s memory shows clearly her abandonment issues, and seeing Charlie after a few years into a new relationship, yet hiding his past, his fear of confrontation and wanting to take always the easy way out.
Life can take funny turns, one moment we are in the deepest imaginable pit, and the next one we are on cloud nine. Failure and success are both clearly present in the characters’ lives, at different moments, yet collide somehow sometimes, by a trick of Fate, when Becca and Charlie are together that one day. 

This was a heart – gripping, heart – warming story, showing the loyalty towards our loved ones. While the prelude was a sad one, the book is still filled with laughter, love and happy feelings.
The reader sees how feelings are shifting, the characters are evolving, maturing.
And I especially liked reading how sometimes the most frustrating person in the world can turn out to be the person you need to have in your life and to love him/her no matter how long it takes to be at the right time and place…