More story, less sex. Autism is portrayed here as a spectrum, doing away with the stereotype in her earlier books. i enjoyed this novel a lot and i think of the series it’s the strongest work—you can just tell how much hoang put into it and that it is deeply personal—but i feel like that selling this as a romance novel doesn’t feel right. the other novels in this series juggle different themes alongside the romance, but i feel like the romance is not superseded by the other lessons being taught in them. i think in this one, anna’s diagnosis and her family play paramount. and it’s dark, really painful stuff, where people may need content warnings to be able to check if they can read this. there were points where i was just so upset and frustrated for anna, and i just couldn’t see how this story ended happily. like, i just couldn’t. although the ending was definitely happy, the lead up to it felt painful also. the story is real, and its poignant, and i think it does a good job at that. but i don’t think it’s in the same vein as the other stories in this series.