4.5 stars 
 I hate giving this a 4.5 stars when I can envision this to be a 5 star if only the end was more polished. 
 I have been highly anticipating this book since I first learned of it. This book is seriously addictive. ADDICTIVE! I could not put it down! It's gripping, it's heartbreaking, it's redemptive, but best of all, it's hopeful. And that love story was--in every sense of the word--beautiful. 
 What I didn't like and some missed opportunities: 
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 * At times I felt like I was reading a YA novel. While the characters are in their mid-to-late twenties, the voice made them seem juvenile, especially when they kept insisting that they grew up fast and were never children in their formative years. 
 * I was irritated that Em strung Trevor along, even when she was already hanging out and kissing Jase, but I guess her self-discovery and reacquaintance with Jase was the catalyst for them to finally part ways. 
 * Knowing Jase's story after that night they were separated would have anchored the story. I know we got some of that, but what little we know just didn't feel like enough. Why couldn't Em ever find him during the past 12 years? Why did it take this long for him to write the book? There were some missed opportunities here to tell Jase's story, I thought. 
 * The ending was too abrupt after investing so much in these characters. I loved the ending to the book-within-the-book, but in the real book, the grand gesture and the epilogue were both disappointing. Em should have said the things she said to that random guy on the plane to Jase; it made that airplane scene awkward and felt completely out of place. The ending wrapped itself together too neatly for some loose ends but still left so many untied. (hide spoiler)] 
 As second chance romances go, compared to Before We Were Strangers, I thought that Em and Jase's story was pretty damn epic. I mean, he wrote a bestseller about and 
 for 
 her, come on!