This book has been out a few years but I only just now discovered (thanks, Amazon recommendations). I’m glad I found it because it’s really good. Ockler writes beautifully, with description that really sets the scene and really gives you a sense of the emotions at play here. Most of the book takes place at the beach and the atmosphere is really powerful. When the characters discuss the majesty of the sea, I could really see and feel it, for instance.

This book is about dealing with the death of a loved one, but for Anna, it’s more complicated than that. Because the loved one who died (Matt) was both one of her two best friends, but also her brand new, secret boyfriend (or something). And, he was the older brother of the other best friend, Frankie. Before he died, he promised to tell Frankie about him and Anna himself and made Anna promise not to tell her. So Anna’s kept the secret all to herself and suffered basically alone because nobody else knows what she’s mourning. But one thing that is incredibly important to her is not forgetting Matt and what kissing him felt like.

In the year since his death, Frankie has changed a lot. She’s become a bit boy and appearance crazy and is trying to get Anna on board with her. And now Anna is going to go with Frankie and her parents on their first vacation since Matt died, to their regular summer stomping grounds on the California coast. Anna wants to see all the things Matt always told her about in order to maybe feel closer to him. But Frankie’s main goal is for the two of them to meet twenty boys so they can have fun and Anna can have her first romance.

And it goes sort of as planned. They don’t get to twenty, but instead stall out on two guys, Jack and Sam. And soon Anna and Sam are getting close and she’s struggling with her feelings for him versus her memories of Matt. There’s a lovely passage that really sums up the emotions she’s dealing with:

I can’t stop thinking about what [Sam] felt like against my body, against my lips. I can’t remember anything else, anything before that. And I realize in this moment that I’ve finally done it. That horrible, awful thing I swore I would never do.

The frosting. The cigarettes. The blue glass triangle. The shooting stars. The taste of [Matt’s] mouth on mine in the hall closet.

Gone.

All I can think about is Sam. Matt is—erased.

My whole body is warm and buzzing.

Sam is smiling next to me, because of me.

And I’ve never felt so lonely in all my life.

It’s rather heartbreaking.

Even though Anna does often feel a little older and wiser than an average sixteen-year-old, Ockler really captures her emotional journey. And what she ultimately realizes is that the reason she struggled so much to move beyond Matt’s death is that she didn’t know what she lost, exactly. A friend, yes. A boyfriend? Maybe.

I have to say, I never really cared for Frankie. I wouldn’t have been interested in being friends with her if we’d been in school together. When it turns out she’s been lying about something major and tricks Anna, I liked her less. Despite this, she’s a good character—real and even relatable, to a degree. Additionally, throughout the book, she clearly grows and we come to understand her a bit more. I loved Anna and both Matt and Sam were good guys who were still believable and fairly deep secondary characters.