So many hits, but just as many misses I'm afraid. Even Christie's best friend in the epilogue years later, says she still 'hates' Blaise. Um, yeah those aren't really words I would want to form a relationship on. They even say to each other that there's no one else they would rather be annoyed, steamrolled and agitated by than each other. In the end it doesn't feel happy like a romance should. There were so many red flags and obvious issues they kept trying to gloss over, fight about, then try and ignore and move on from, only for it to come up again and again. They were far too different, and wanted different things. I could not see how they could legitimately build a life together, at all. These are great people, but they weren't great together.

Overall though the relationship was just too unbelievable for me to accept. I am glad that in the book Blaise seeks therapy, but it's clear she desperately needed more, and a lot sooner. I DID however love seeing Blaise deal with their trauma and confront their own ideals of gender and sexuality, coming to terms with a non-binary identity for themself. So I never did understand any real connection between the two. While Christie is a kind hearted and supportive girlfriend, she's also young, rash, arrogant and prideful with her sporting prowess, and seems a bit frivolous with money, and her 'take charge' attitude. We didn't ever really understand why Christie would be at all interested in Blaise, who is 10 years older, a mother, a widow, and who clearly has a LOT of issues, especially surrounding Christie's career as an athlete. We only get Blaise's internal monologue and I think the story suffered from that. Yet, Christie persists with wanting to date Blaise. So when Blaise meets Christie, a 23 year old Pro women's basketball player, they don't exactly hit it off well right away. There's a lot to love about this story, our MC Blaise is coming to terms with the death of their husband who was their best friend, while raising a teenaged boy - and also dealing with feelings of gender-non-conformity.īlaise is 34 and is a Math genius, who was accelerated in school but bullied very badly by 'the jocks' to the point of physical abuse and mental torment.

Simply Connected by Alex Washoe