Love, Holly

Already this book was earth shatteringly beautiful. Just the first few chapters absolutely grabbed my heart and held onto it. What made it even more intense was the fact that my names Lily and reading a book in which part of the plot is about a girl with the same name gets into a car wreck while pregnant and with her sister driving. It made an even bigger precedent to get through this book and see the healing between these two sisters. I've never read a book that's had my heart so early on, and I can't help but think that it might be fate because I legit got this book at Target in a whim with no real thought to it. If I could write some letters right now, they would be in regard to Holly, Jack, Emma, Lily, and Emily Stone. The slow burn...chefs kiss!!! The absolute raw communication and miscommunication of Jack and Holly...perfection!!! The development and build of the most beautiful characters and plot...I am irrevocably and most ardently in love!!!

Emily Stone is the queen of emotional romances that kind of take place during Christmas but span a whole year of coincidences, connections and healing. This one might be my fave.

I could not put this book down!. I started it after midnight and I had to force myself to go to sleep once I hit 75% because I knew there was no other way I was getting any sleep that night.

I love books about connections between people and how we can enrich others' lives by being in them. Like found family but with more coincidental ties and even more emotionally healing one another. Love, Holly does this so well!

A big focus for Love, Holly is grief. There are three main people who are experiencing different kinds of loss, and they go through it in very different ways. I really enjoyed seeing them heal and rebuild some bridges and also how unique their approaches were. How seeing someone else go through something similar can give you a whole new perspective on your own pain. And how sometimes it's much easier to tend to other people than ourselves.

The romance is incredibly sweet as well. I felt like there was a bit more of it than her previous two books. Somehow Emily Stone keeps managing to make an instant connection and a year of coincidences feel not only absolutely believable, but also romantic and deep.

This book is still more about the individual characters and their journeys rather than the romance as a whole. I loved all three of the characters, the grumpy elderly lady especially. I loved seeing them change, grow, and accept that they do deserve love and happiness, that you can rely on others even if there is always the possibility of loss.

The only thing that bothered me was Holly's family's reaction to what happens at the beginning of the book. So much could have been avoided if any of them (but especially the parents) had approached it with a modicum of reason and communication skills.

Thank you so much to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books, Dell Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC!

Overall rating: 4.2⭐