She was the perfect blend of confident and unsure. She was fully nuanced, so gorgeous and bold and different without ever falling into a YA cliché and I loved seeing the world from her eyes. Nowlin so perfectly captures that teen voice: the misunderstandings between teenagers, the things unsaid, the dreams, the doubts, the wildly good times and also snatches of depression. The things left unsaid, the memories swirling around them, hope's dashed, future's uncertain. It hit me harder than a just the regular dreamy smile for the hot guy next door (and Finny is a hot boy living next door): I felt it right through to my stomach and to my chest constricting as I watched August and Finny together. This is a YA coming-of-age love story, but not in that swoony, predictable way. I love the time span of this novel, it stretched ahead of me and wrapped itself around me and I was entirely absorbed into Autumn's world. And this book differs from other YA books as it spans over three years of Autumn's life (told in the present, but it also encapsulated much more than that with memories and flashbacks). I was unprepared for just how good this book is, easily my favourite YA book of the year so far and it now sits on my favourites shelf. I liked the cover, the premise sounded like my kind of thing and I always like the chase of finding a YA book free of preconceived hopes and praise. I ordered it on a whim, not really sure what to expect. I have barely heard of any buzz surrounding Laura Nowlin's debut.

It has been a long time since I have fallen so hard for a contemporary YA novel. The night she's about to get the answer is also one of terrible tragedy. But one incident in middle school puts them in separate social worlds come high school, and Autumn has always wondered what if.

Throughout their whole childhood, Finny and Autumn were inseperable - they finished each other's sentences, they knew just what to say when the other person was hurting.

Blood Song by Rhiannon Hart