“Stay away from him,” people said.
“He’s cruel.”
“He’s cold.”
“He’s damaged.”
It’s easy to judge a man because of his past. To look at Tristan and see a monster.
But I couldn’t do that. I had to accept the wreckage that lived inside of him because it also lived inside of me.
We were both empty.
We were both looking for something else. Something more.
We both wanted to put together the shattered pieces of our yesterdays.
Then perhaps we could finally remember how to breathe.
***4.85 stars***
This book is magnificent! We are introduced to Liz and Tristan at the most tragic time of their lives, both have suffered a devastating loss and are struggling to cope. Liz is a now single parent fighting to be stronger, trying to be nothing like how her mother was after the loss of her father, because she has a little girl that needs her not to fall apart. Tristan is wandering almost aimlessly through life, too lost in his grief to care what people think about him and too broken to let go of those lost.
Liz was so strong, I know she had her moments of weakness, but even in her breakdowns she kept on trying to move forward for Emma, her darling little girl. I think what helped her the most is that she didn't push people out, she let her mother take care of her, she stayed connected with her hilarious best friend Faye and when she met Tristan she didn't completely write him off like everybody else had (even though there were moments where I think she was close to doing it).
At first Tristan on the outside is wild and terrifying, people avoided him out of fear and they judged him loudly for his silence, their judgements cruel and based upon assumptions not fact. We get to see another side of him though, the one that loves fiercely and lives most days in memory, a broken man who has lost the biggest parts of him.
Tristan and Liz started out as two strangers, the earth they walked upon had split in two taking with it the ones they loved, leaving them both hanging upon the edge. When they started to get to know one another, my stomach started to turn and not in a good way because their relationship wasn't healthy for either of them, but it was still so impossible not to be caught up in. As more time passed and their connection began to change, the pages and the words upon them became something truly magical, healing the most deepest of wounds.
I cried pretty much throughout this whole book, to witness what these two characters went through, both before they met and their journey together was for the most part absolutely heartbreaking. When I wasn't feeling as though I had, had a mallet taken to my chest I was captivated by beautifully crafted words that patched all my broken pieces together. There was only one thing that I didn't like about this book and that was about what another character, who features in the story, had done and whet they do. I thought it was a little bit too over the top and could have been done differently, but the overall brilliance this book was not too overshadowed by it.
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