Every Time You Go Away by Abagail Johnson (2023)
For all of us readers who embrace a compelling story of broken young souls, this one's guaranteed to put your heart through the wringer........many times over.
You'll know from the start that this is no ordinary childhood-to-adolescence coming of age for next door best friends and neighbors Ethan and Rebecca. It's Ethan's grandparents' house he lives in, because he's regularly abandoned there by his drug addict mother as she endures perpetual in-and-out rehabs. When she bounces back into Ethan's life to reclaim him, Rebecca suffers from watching her childhood best friend constantly taken in and out of her life.
Reunited again at 17 years old, the separate tragedies of their lives serve to overwhelm and thwart their obvious, aching attraction for each other. Ethan's spent an unbearably sad childhood still devoted to his wayward mom, even while inflicted with abuse and neglect by her and and her string of lowlife boyfriends. And on his latest return, he finds Rebecca now permanently wheelchair bound, the result of a tragic accident that also took her father's life.
It takes a truly skilled author to bring such characters to life, to make them so real and vivid that your hopes soar every time you sense they're edging ever closer to what they feel for each other..........and then crush you to pieces when their troubles and long suppressed anger and hurt drive them apart. Abigail Johnson most definitely has the skills required.....and anyone with a heartbeat will find themselves hard pressed to finish this book with dry eyes.
If you positively live for 5 star emotional reads, I'd bump this one to the top of any TBR list.
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