This was a really good book. I feel like it had a lot of lessons in it about grief. It was a tearjerker for sure. Or maybe it's that I've experienced loss recently. The characters are all grieving the loss of someone, who the MC still sees. At first, it was a little confusing for me about Danny, but it gets cleared up pretty soon and the story begins.

The book centered on their religion, which helped to really develop their characters and their circumstances. Leah Scheier did an amazing job.

Isn’t it the hardest thing saying goodbye to someone who already became inseparable part of your life? Is there any specific way to deal with your grief? Restraining, denial, lying to yourself may be the temporary solution but the pain is always there! It never goes away!

Nine months Danny disappears. Her three friends including her girlfriend Ellie who was the last person she’s seen him deal with his disappearance with different kind of defense mechanisms.

Deenie obsessively deepens her commitment to religious rituals of Orthodox Judaism as Rae turns into 24/7 Hell’s Kitchen contestant, pouring out her anger, resentment , sadness to create delicious bakeries.

But Ellie is the worst who may not differentiate the dream and reality: she keeps seeing her everyday. Even they have girl talk at their kitchen she thinks he is with them, smiling their sassy comments.

We see how they fell for each other by moving backward and learn what went so wrong.

Ellie still thinks he’s alive. They keep talking which worries her friend about her mental health.

I think this book is very much informative about Orthodox Judaism and the characters’ choices centered around the religion. We also understand the effects of religious doctrines in their lives and realize how their characters shaped, how they developed different personalities.

Interesting fact about the book is even though this book is about three unique different girls’ lives, their self discoveries, growing pains in a different secluded society, Danny may be the main the character of the book. We informed that he got lost from the first page but his unique existence appears at each chapter, helping to develop the entire structure of the emotional, heartfelt story.

Overall: I mostly enjoyed this heartbreaking young adult, thought provoking, sad and meaningful story a lot.

So many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

It’s funny that I talked about this book in my Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Radar (6/1/21) and then later that day it became available on Netgalley so I requested it. I didn’t mean to get approved for this right away and then immediately binge it in the same day but here we are.

Even though the blurb talks about Danny disappearing and Ellie still being able to see him, I didn’t think that this book would be the tearjerker that it was. There is a lot of talk about grief and that definitely hit me hard. I could relate to the characters, especially Ellie.

Ellie belongs to the Jewish community and goes to a Jewish school as well as having friends who are also Jewish. I do not belong to this community so I can’t talk about that aspect of the book but I did learn new things about the community. I also understood her friends who have taken different routes when it comes to their faith and how they choose to practice since I have grown up in a religious household. It is very relatable and it shows that not everything is as black and white as some would think.

Ellie and her friends also deal with the loss of Danny in different ways as well. They each have their reasonings and the plot circles around the night of his disappearance. The plot also deals with the friendships of these girls because of the strain put on it by Danny and their choices when it comes to religion. There is a lot going on when it comes to topics but there isn’t one that overshadows the other and they all come together to make a plot that is very powerful and emotional.

The unique part of the book is that even though Danny isn’t really there he is still very much a big part of the book. Through stories that Ellie gathers about him, the friendship he shared with the group of friends, and the way that Ellie grieves He is always there in his own way. This definitely helped to add the connection I needed to him and really give me understanding about the characters feelings towards him and because of that it also made me cry.

Overall, this was a great book and I would highly recommend checking it out! I know my review is quite vague but I truly think it is one of those books where it’s better to go in blind like I did.