This is how you do mental illness!

And this is how you do romance!

I probably need to calm down because this review will be full of gifs and rainbows and puppies if I don't (okay not really but you get the point, I guess). To be honest, I hade no idea what to expect from this book at all. Hell, I didn't even know what it was exactly about. I just knew that the synopsis sounded interesting so I decided to give it a shot. Well, let me tell you, it surprised me. Mental illness thing surprised me because it was not mentioned even once anywhere. I'll admit that, after a while, I guessed what was wrong with her but it definitely didn't ruin any part of a book for me. Because as the book kept going, it kept throwing even more surprises into the mix (that actually made a lot of sense, shocking I know) and it left me wanting more after it'd ended.

We have our main protagonist, Ellie, who's dealing with blackouts that last from short to long periods of time. And she can't remember any of it. Sometimes she wakes up in her bed, sometimes she's in the woods, and most of the time, there are the events that happened or the things she'd said to her family and friends she can't remember. I could feel her pain. I could feel the struggle she was having inside of her head. I could feel how hard it was for her to deal with it and figure out what was wrong with her. What with her being adopted at a young age and not remembering first six years of her life, it can be quite hard to handle.

Her parents are always there for her though, as well as her younger sister, even though she doesn't tell them anything about what's going on with her. To be honest, I liked their relationship, though I wish there was a bit more of it. Maybe it was a little bit underdeveloped but I understand that this is not a book about family, so it's understanding, I guess. Sometimes, her parents' actions made me furious and sometimes I agreed with them. It shows that all of us can make mistakes and should never be judged by any of them.

Now, onto the romance. Can you actually believe that we have one couple throughout the whole book? We get a couple that's been together for six months and they are together at the end of the book, too and I was so shocked by this because I was expecting Ellie to have some sort of complex feelings towards the other guy because that's what every book these days does.

So, we have Ellie and Shane who've been together for six months and still going strong. They want to have sex but Ellie keeps blacking out while, well, you know, trying to actually have sex and then waking up in her own bed. Later, she finds out that she basically ran out of Shane's door and yelled at him and all that jazz. Well, you would expect from a teenager like Shane to freak out and break up with Ellie (which is a case happening in every YA novel) but no. He proves me wrong again when he stays understanding and stays with Ellie, assuring her that it's fine and that they can do it when she's ready. And seriously, the guy is so sweet I thought that maybe he wasn't real or something. You can't help but to love him and want to squish him or something. I wish there were more actual guys like him (in YA literature and in real life).

Then Ellie blacks out for three days, wakes up in another guy's apartment and shit goes down from there. Shane breaks up with her because of the picture she apparently sent him while she was gone, she's grounded till the end of the year by her parents and she has weekly visits to the therapist (which was why her parents thought she was gone).

She then starts to get to know Griffin, the guy at which apartment's she woke up in, and the guy she's apparently involved with. He's a tattoo artist, he keeps calling her Gwen and she doesn't understand a thing. And you know, you would expect from the guy to be the broody, mysterious type or something, but no, he's sweet as well! He's likeable and sweet and cute and 'hot' is not the only thing in Ellie's mind. In fact, she doesn't develop any feelings for him, expect for the friendship ones. He's understanding all the time and, even if he gets mad sometimes, he stays the same guy that we've met at the beginning and it seriously confuses me because I like both guys equally and I was half-sad, half-happy after I've finished this book.

I was also happy with an overall result. This book has some serious messages we need to take in consideration. The main character was likeable and relatable. She wasn't slut-shaming other girls or being sexist. I don't count jealousy and, even when she was jealous, there was none of it. She's grown throughout the novel and became someone else - someone stronger than before. The romance was done excellently. It wasn't the main part of a story but it still played the big part in it. It was realistic, it was sweet and it was done without love interests that made no sense. The mental illness part was exactly how I wanted it to be done. It is hard to find a book these days that handles it well and this one definitely did that. My only objection is that some characters weren't developed enough. I wanted to see more of some of them. But I can look past that because there were many more good parts than bad ones.

All in all, I'd recommend this book in a heartbeat. It made me feel a bit numb, a bit sad and a bit happy afterwards and I believe I'll remember it for a long time.