Sisterhood of Reading

In the Hello and in the Goodbye– Melissa Whitney
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I received an ARC of this book from author, Melissa Whitney, and was excited to read it.

In the hello, Colm and Evie had a sweet love story. They met in a coffee shop- Colm quiet and awkward and Evie a chatterbox who is full of positivity. Colm is a teacher on the autism spectrum and Evie is a social worker who struggled to get people to take her seriously. In the goodbye, after 5 years together in a storybook romance they find themself getting further away from each other literally and figuratively. Neither of them feels like they are the same people they were when they first met. Colm leaves for the summer to Costa Rica to help at a school for students with specials needs, leaving Evie behind. They struggled to connect and communicate with each other before the distance, but it seems like they will reach their breaking point. Finally they can’t do it anymore, so Colm comes up with a plan to fight for their relationship. If they can’t, they will walk away forever. Can they use the distance to grow closer, or will the distance in their relationship be the end of them? 

This book was sweet, romantic, and sad. I don’t normally love the duel timeline but Melissa did a great job with this. It is also a duel POV which I do love. It was always clear who’s POV it was and when. You could really get a sense of both characters personalities from their POV. I love that it was split in the hello and in the goodbye, that was really clever. At the start of the book, some of the dialogue between the two characters was a little…cringe. It was just too sweet that it was borderline cheesy BUT it does get better and there are spicy parts to balance it out. I really enjoyed the diversity of the characters and love seeing that represented in this book. Overall it was sweet romance with a hint of spice, that I definitely recommend. I’d be happy to read any other books that Melissa writes!