In the final week of school, after having sat next to each other all year in their calculus class, Kate and Mark meet for the first time during Pride Week in San Francisco. What they haven't known is how much they need each other.

Mark has loved his best friend Ryan nearly all his life. They discovered their homosexuality together, they experimented together, they formed both an emotional and physical intimacy together. And Mark loves him, although that love is a secret. Unlike Mark, Ryan is not out, and he has rules for himself. No dancing. No physical contact. Nothing that would reveal what Ryan hopes to keep secret. Mark knows that Ryan isn't ready to be known as gay, just as he also knows that Ryan isn't ready for Mark to love him.

Kate has loved Violet for a while now, even though the two have yet to meet. They exchange emails, but most of their contact comes through Violet's cousin and Kate's best friend Lehna. The daughter of people who are in the circus, Violet has traveled the world, and Kate knows she could love her. But Kate is terrified. She's almost frozen in place, terrified by what loving Violet could mean, terrified that the paintings she created aren't good enough (even though she got accepted to UCLA's hard-fought art school based on them). She's unable to move forward in any aspect of her life.

When Mark and Kate meet, each is on the precipice of change. Mark watches his relationship with Ryan change, powerless to stop that from happening. Kate watches her friendship with Lehna change and she watches her potential relationship with Violet nearly implode, feeling powerless to stop both from happening. Together, they help each other overcome their fears and overcome the powerlessness those fears induce.

Told in alternate POVs, you get into both characters' minds and hearts. Of the two, Mark's story resonates deeper. I think I cried at least a half dozen times while reading his arc. His desperation for Ryan to accept his own homosexuality and Mark's love is palpable. It will break your heart.

Which is why the resolution of that thread feels disappointing. It's as if Mark gets slighted somehow.

Kate's story is not as relatable, if only because I couldn't understand how a girl who demanded that Mark be her friend is the same girl who is paralyzed by the unknown. Still, though, her fears are understandable. When you're 18 and your future sits in front of you, it can be terrifying.

Set against Pride Week, this book doesn't use homosexuality to make any grand statements or to try and change the world. Rather, as Lin-Manuel Miranda said in his Tony acceptance speech, it shows that love is love is love is love is love is love. The gender of who you love doesn't matter. All that does matter is love itself.