I read the summary of this book and I thought it had a lot of potential to be a great novel. There was obviously the romance side of the book, but I felt like the struggle Jake would go through after the accident and losing his ability to speak would make for a great character exploration. Unfortunately, more of the book was focused on Jake and Sam’s relationship than on Jake trying to find his way after something so tragic.

I found Jake and Sam’s characters to be a bit flat and slightly too stereotypical. Their relationship felt a little too cheesy and clichéd and some of the plot twists felt like they were thrown in to extend the length of the novel. In my opinion, this book could have been amazing if it had been cut in half. I felt there was a good, solid ending to the love story right in the middle of the book, and yet there was still another half to read.

I really do wish Taylor had explored Jake more and his life after the accident. The few moments I really enjoyed in the book were the times when Jake’s frustration with his new life came through, but those were few and far between. He seemed to shake off those problems faster than he should. If those emotions and struggles had been explored more, this could have become a great, emotional novel.

One other minor thing that bothered me was the complete open end of the homeless man brought in to teach Jake sign language and ended up living in their house for a while. It seemed to just be there without a purpose or a point and it bugged me a little bit as I read.

Overall, this book just didn’t do it for me. There wasn’t enough emotion or growth in the characters to make it a stand out and I ended up just skimming the closer I got to the end of the book.