What started out as an amazingly emotional and heart-tugging 5 star book gradually turned into 3 stars because of the writing style. To start with, it was way too drawn out and repetitive. Secondly, there was too much telling and not enough showing. And then, it was chock-full of the most annoying kind of flashbacks. Why do I need to look back on something that happened 15 minutes ago? There's nothing wrong with consecutive narrative, you know?