🎧 Audiobook review 🎧
Mina’s life is going according to plan; she’s acing AP Calc and is perfectly content with her nonexistent social life. Though only a high school junior, Mina knows time is an investment, and she’s putting all her capital into academics. Oliver, a child abuse survivor who grew up in the foster care system, is ready to burn down his old life and start from scratch—complete with a new name and emancipation papers—in L.A. When the two are thrown together through circumstance and develop an unexpected connection, they discover how hard it is to keep the past in the past.
I have to admit, it took me a minute to get into this book but I’m so glad I persevered because I ended up powering through it, unable to put it down. I really liked the story of Oliver and Mina, these characters are both so damaged, but they’re certainly not bad people and they’re good for each other, I wanted Oliver and Mina to be happy. Flawed people can be good and kind, they’re more than the things that have happened to them and Love and Other Sins really does portray that so well. I wanted a happy ending for Oliver and Mina and I found Mina’s mum and her broken English so endearing. I’ve read a few books where the characters come from an abusive background, but I think this might be the first for me where the character was male and I appreciate that, boys and men are survivors too and their stories deserve to be told. I was not expecting the cliffhanger at the end, I can’t not read the second book now, I need to know what happens! Karissa Vacker and Will Collyer are amazing narrators, they really brought the story to life.
Content warning: sexual assault, recollections of child abuse, discussions of suicidal thoughts, and mention of miscarriage.
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