Katie Kacvinsky

"It's been four months since Gray and Dylan have seen each other. Dylan's been traveling in Europe, while Gray has college, baseball, and a life rooted in one place. Gray's determined to forget Dylan, the girl he fell in love with. Besides, how do you make a relationship work with an independent loner? Just when he decides he's over her, Dylan makes an unexpected entrance back into his life, hoping their steamy romance can start right where it left off. Gray realizes you can tell your mind to do one thing, but you can't always convince your heart to follow. Dylan realizes she finally has to make a choice between freedom and her relationship with Gray"--Back cover.

Second Chance

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I love this series. I found myself rereading the first two books before starting to read an ARC of Finally, Forever not because I forgot anything about the characters and the story, because they're truly unforgettable, but because I wanted to live in their world just a little longer. I was hopelessly lost in this book, Dylan and Gray, and all the emotions that came with it. 

  
    "I think falling in love should come with a warning label: CAUTION – side effects may include breaking up, accompanied by heartache, sever mood swings, withdrawal from people and life itself, wasted hours obsessing over bitter reflections, a need to destroy something (particularly something expensive that shatters), uncontrollable tear ducts, stress, a loss of appetite (Cheetos and Dr. Pepper exempt), a bleak and narrow outlook on the future, and an overall hatred of everyone and everything (especially all the happy couples you see strolling hand-in-hand, placed on your path only to exacerbate your isolation and misery). All above reactions will be intensified with the consumption of one or more alcoholic beverages."
  

When we left Dylan and Gray in First Comes Love, they had gone their separate ways and in Second Chance Love, they're attempting to find themselves and live their lives without the other. As you might expect, Dylan is doing this a little better than Gray is, but she still misses him every day. She's a free spirit though. Gray is angry and, more than that, he's hurt. He knows he did the right thing in letting Dylan go, that she wasn't ready to be tied down and would have ultimately ended up resenting him had he encouraged her to stay, but that doesn't lessen the pain. Gray has great things in his life and a promising future, but the one thing that's missing, Dylan, is keeping him from moving on and causing him to mess things up. He turned to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain of missing her and it's messing with his head and his future. Just when he's convinced he might be ready to try to move on once and for all, Gray shows back up in his life and sets him in a tailspin again. 

  
    "I think falling in love should come with a warning label: CAUTION – side effects may include sporadic singing in public (specifically Celine Dion covers), emotional intoxication, constant fool grinning, stomach flipping, eye twinkling, heart palpitations, sweaty hands, jittery feet, lack of sleep, giddiness, deep sighs of contentment, sexual fantasizing, uncontrollable bouts of happiness, and the need to help everyone else around you fall in love so they can experience this blissful state. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery under the influence of love, due to lightheadedness and daydreaming."
  
 
Dylan is her happy-go-lucky self as she travels Europe. She's too free-spirited to be caged and she's in her element. She's head-over-heels in love and convinced everything between her and Gray is fine and when they're back in the same place they'll fall together again. She has no idea what her absence is doing to him until she meets a girl in Switzerland thats from Albuquerque. Catherine knows Gray and she fills Dylan in on what's going on with him. She also offers clueless Dylan a little bit of advice about her relationship with Gray: if you love someone you should be with them and you need to decide what's more important to you – freedom or him. Taking Catherine's words to heart, she does some soul-searching and decides it's time to go home to Gray. 

  
    "It appears time has two different effects on the heart," I say, still looking at the leaves. "It either makes it swell with love or shrivel with bitterness."
  

As you can imagine, Gray's not quite as happy to see Dylan as she hoped. She expected to be welcomed with open arms and instead found a broken, sullen man who intended to keep her at arms length. Dylan is nothing if not determined and she really puts herself out there for Gray in this book. I'm a firm believer you should never fully change yourself for another person, but some compromise is necessary. Gray's rooted. Dylan's a wander. One of them will have to change even just a little if they're going to make this work. I loved seeing a Dylan that was a little better adjusted, but at the same time, it was sad to see her spirit breaking and her compromising who she was. But, I wanted her with Gray. Inner turmoil to the max! They're just so perfect together. There had to be a way for them to work it out. With the guidance of good friends like Cat and Lenny, they make mistakes and hurt each other, but the strength of their feelings for each other isn't something that can be ignored for long.

  
    "I learned something tonight. Love always finds you, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. It knows your hiding places. It's smarter than you'll ever be. And love is patient. It waits. Sometimes it waits until you give up. Just to prove you wrong."
  

This book was full of feels. Katie Kacvinsky has a gorgeous way of writing characters, inner dialogue and conversations that pull you into the moment and make you feel as though you're living it instead of reading it. I laughed and cried, I cheered Dylan on as she put herself out there to try to get Gray back, and understood why Gray was apprehensive about giving it another shot. There's just something special about these characters and their story and I think it's because they're unique and their relationship is far from perfect, but it's realistic and unflinchingly honest. This could have easily turned into a cliche book full of the back-and-forth, on and off again, angsty second chance books I've read in the past. It wasn't. It was heartwarming and emotional (and required about two glasses of wine for my overly-emotional self to get through), but it was beautiful and the perfect second part to their story. The ending broke me, but I expected it all along and just had to trust they would get it right eventually.

Second Chance

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