This is a hard book to review for some reason. There's really not a reason why... I suppose I'm a lot like Mallory in that I'm tongue-tied as to what words I should use to describe my reading experience. Overall, this was really dark. And it should be considering it deals with child abuse, PTSD, and other traumatic things I can't go into because of spoilers. I was really invested in the story and I couldn't wait to pick up the book again as soon as I put it down. This was one of Jennifer Armentrout's most emotionally and intellectually compelling books. 
 I'm used to Jennifer Armentrout's paranormal stories with lots of action and monsters and smooches. So this almost felt like it was entirely a different author due not only to the subject matter but also in tone. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It just, personally, kept throwing me a little bit. Also, it felt like the pacing was off. It was soooooo slow moving at times. And considering how long this book was I feel like a lot of the story could have been edited a bit shorter and had the story span a greater length of time with more events covered. I think the narrative definitely would have benefited in having the course of the story span longer. The whole story was told over the course of a few months. So it seems off that all of this drama and trauma would happen all in such a condensed portion of time. I think the action would have progressed a bit more naturally when spanning the course of... let's say a year, and would have been more emotionally fitting. The story we got wasn't bad by any means I just felt like it needed to pick up some more steam. 
 Again, I liked the book and felt involved in the story. There were moments where I was holding my breath because I knew something terrible was about to happen. There were moments where I found myself tearing up. There were moments where I laughed. When all these moments were added up it made me fully understand Mallory's definition of "forever." Like The Velveteen Rabbit, it was "real."