Into the Blue: A Reese's Book Club: A Love Story

4.5 stars rounding up to 5!This was such a unique read and so hard to put down at times. The writing was amazing! When I initially picked this book up, I thought it was going to be a like, not a love,but I was so wrong. As the story unfolds, this book grabbed a hold of me and I became hooked! If you are someone who loves pining, this is pining at 1000%. This is a decades long love story that will have you so emotionally invested and my heart was literally aching for these characters. I had no idea where it was going or how it was going to end. Something you don't often get with romance.It begins in the early aughts, so it has a touch of nostaglia then you follow the two main characters over a span of a few years. I can't think of anything I have read that is similar. It kind of reminded me of Heart the Lover, where it's a romance, but also it gives you more than that. The niche theme revolving around sci-fi tv shows, Hollywood, improv and SNL gave me Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow vibes for some reason, even though I wasn't a fan of that book.Overall, it may not be for everyone, but if any of this sounds interesting to you, I'd highly recommend you checking it out.

Into the Blue wrecked me in every possible way! It’s a gorgeous, evocative story about grief, love, and raw human connection. We follow AJ and Noah across a dual timeline and get to see them go from strangers to friends to lovers and everything in between.AJ and Noah feel so real and complex it’s honestly wild they’re fictional. We see them across a dual timeline, seeing them go from strangers to friends to lovers and everything in between. They’re messy, vulnerable, and deeply human. I found myself rooting for them so hard that it physically hurt.Their second-chance love story is packed with tension, angst, and an the most raw connection I’ve seen in a story in a long time. The chemistry was electric and I was completely immersed from start to finish.Emma’s writing is immersive and addictive - I honestly couldn’t get enough. I can’t wait to see what she puts out next 🤍

This is a beautiful book; it ripped my heart out. Some may call this a romance, but I’d call it dramatic fiction with romance, like The Favorites. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and personally, I would have liked to see some trigger warnings.It’s deeply profound, angsty, and even spicy; just know you’re going into a heavy read.

So far so good!

Ok.. wow. If you're looking for an angsty, gut-wrenching love story (emphasis on love story and not romance) with two people who are truly the physical embodiment of soulmates - do yourself a favor and read this, but please expect a lot of pain, discomfort, and go into it knowing it's not all going to end tied with a pretty bow. This book took me on such a beautifully crafted journey that I did not want to end - I was invested in all nearly 500 pages of this.This story takes place over the span of about 15 years. We first get to know AJ and Noah in the year 2000 and the author really hit the nail on the head with the nostalgia during that time. I literally felt transported back to the early 2000s and it made for a wistful experience.I liked the way this book was outlined. The chapters in this book aren't really chapters and the book is more so broken up into different parts to signify a new era in AJ's life. Some of the parts were very long, while others not so much, but there's breaks within each part that naturally felt like a good stopping point, much like chapters, so even if my kindle said "1 hour and 30 minutes left in this chapter" I didn't stress lol. I thought it was paced out really well.I absolutely loved how in depth the author dived into the craft of acting and improvisation. I've obviously read a ton of books with characters who were actors, but none like Noah and AJ. It was truly a craft here and was portrayed with the utmost detail and passion. This might be niche but if you happened to see the Actors on Actors interview that David Corenswet and Jonathan Bailey did last year and if took the way they talked about acting and turned that into a tangible thing, it would be AJ and Noah. It was absolutely fascinating to see them play together and how innate their connection was. Romantic in the most intense way. I also really enjoyed the grind that came into AJ's career as a writer. Her working towards SNL and all that came with it was so neat to read about. Again, I've read about writers, but it felt different here.This book was emotionally intense. Noah and AJ are intense people, Noah more so than anything being the working actor of the two, and it's a lot to hold on to. There's so much passion in everything they say to each other, every look, every touch - it was kind of intoxicating in the best possible way. Noah and AJ were soulmates in a way that I feel like you only ever read about in fantasy novels. Their connection was cosmic, fated, transcendent. So, needless to say, the years long push and pull was torture and I lost count of all of the times my heart dropped to my stomach.I won't say much else because there's a lot of twists and turns, things that made me gasp, and moments that hurt. This was wonderfully written and I'd highly recommend, but please don't go into it expecting a typical romance novel. This is not it, but you will find a love worth fighting for.