An extraordinary debut novel in which the transforming love and friendship between two young men during one unforgettable teenage summer in rural New England haunts them into adulthood

It took three car crashes to kill Jake.

Theron David Alden is there for the first two: the summer they meet in rural New Hampshire, when he’s fifteen and anxious, and Jake’s seventeen and a natural; then six years later in New York City, those too-short, ecstatic, painful nights that change both their lives forever—the end of the dream and the longing for the dream and the dream itself, all at once.

Theron is not there for the third crash.

And yet, their story contains so much joy and the glorious, stupid simplicity of a boyhood joke; the devastation of insecurity; the way a great song can distill a universe; the limits of what we can know about each other; the mysterious, porous, ungraspable fault line between yourself and the person you love better than yourself; the beautiful, toxic elixir of need and hope and want.

Sometimes, a book comes along right when you need it most. I was in the mood for something filled with hope and beauty, but that would also kick me in the gut and rip out my heart, and that is exactly what this book did. I loved it so much that it’s almost difficult to capture all of my feelings in a succinct review.

When Theron travels from California to New Hampshire to spend the summer with his father, the moment he steps foot on the plane, he starts counting down the days until he can leave. Theron doesn’t have many friends back home, but he knows no one in New Hampshire, and he and his dad have very little in common. It looks to be a boring and uneventful summer. Thankfully, Theron brought some pot with him and can do his best to stay high all summer – until his dad catches him and, as punishment, insists that Theron get a job.

It’s at this job that Theron meets Jake – a young Texas man a couple of years older than Theron who is in New Hampshire working for the summer. The two click from the moment they meet and become inseparable until Jake abruptly leaves town, just when Theron begins developing feelings for him. But Jake isn’t gay – in fact, he’s engaged to a girl in Texas – and Theron isn’t even sure whether or not he is gay himself; he just knows that sometimes he is attracted to guys, and Jake was one of those guys.

Over the course of the next several years, Jake and Theron’s lives continue to intersect, and their connection grows in intensity, blurring lines between friendship and romance, love and hate, longing and regret – until something happens that tears them apart forever.

This book beautifully portrays what it’s like for a young guy to develop feelings for another guy and have no idea how to express or act on them. It reminded me a lot of “Call Me By Your Name” – another book that I loved – but I gotta say, while that book broke my heart, this one ripped it out and stomped on it.

From the moment we meet Jake and Theron, their story is a rollercoaster of emotions that took me back to when I was young and, dumb and naive and so badly in need of love and connection. Thompson perfectly explores themes of insecurity, desire, and the inability to express these needs for fear of totally losing the one thing that brings you joy.

Jake’s magnetic personality and Theron’s introspective nature create a dynamic that is both intoxicating and heartbreaking. Their chemistry is palpable, their bond unbreakable, and their flaws relatable for any young gay guy who has been in Theorn’s shoes. From the euphoria of falling in love to the anguish of watching it slip away, Thompson captures every moment with stunning clarity and gut-wrenching honesty. I didn’t want it to end – mostly because I knew after reading the first chapter that it wasn’t going to be a happy ending.

Trust me when I say that this is a book that will stay with you long after you’ve finished it. It is a story of love and loss, of hope and despair, and perfectly captures the angst of being young and finding yourself falling for someone of the same gender while also not fully understanding those feelings. I related so much that I thought for sure the author must have lived in my head when I was in my early twenties. This is a must-read for anyone who craves a beautifully written, emotionally charged story that will tug at your heartstrings.