This Is Not a Love Story
Why do I have the feeling that only other authors are reading this book? 
Sometimes "LOVE" is too small a word.
Maybe this review doesn't make much sense.
Once I heard that a whole life is necessary to make a man but only takes one war to end him.
War is not always a bunch of battles that destroy the world, sometimes someone has lived too much for his years. Remee and Julian have lived too much. Scars run too deep.
I seriously think Suki Fleet is a liar. This is not a love story? Trust no author. Oh my, if this is not love, I don't know what love is. This book is another dimension of the feeling. I love intimist style in a book. I can't help it, they hold me captive every time I read one. It's the style I find the closest to the heart, I find exploring all the hidden corners in the psyche and soul fascinating and spellbinding. I love exploring the details, the colors, the sounds. It makes me feel part of their lives in a way I can't compare with other stories. With just two lines, I knew this novel would be for me. Tailor-made like the best leather gloves. Hypnotic but angsty, sad but beautiful, desperate but powerful. The kind of book where I see devotion in all its glory. Veneration for one human being at its best. Love could almost be tasted like the sixth flavor after umami. The most alike book I can find is [b:Split|10392104|Split|Mel Bossa|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328743846s/10392104.jpg|15295887]. I wish there were more.
And I don't even understand homeless people. Much less teenagers living on the streets. I don't care if I don't agree with the characters, I just need for feel them authentic and consistent and understand them. Here I don't understand, at least in the beginning, but I didn't care about that. It's strange because I agreed with them in all their tormented existence. Ironic, how things change with the right words and perspective.
I'm a sucker for YA books but sometimes I feel there is something missing. Like those teens are in their own bubbles, as they should be. But that bubble is the same environment once and again. School, family, friends, bullying. It's like there were metaphorical blinkers that only allow them to see certain things, like the tip of the ice-berg in a real life. It's not that we should see the whole ice-berg, because nobody achieves that. But I'm watching the same part of that ice-berg again and again and it never occurred to me there could be more pieces. I feel a little like Plato leaving the cave and being blinded by the sun for the first time. No, this book is not philosophical, but makes me so.
I don't like beginning a book with an already stable relationship. We don't see how Remee and Julian meet and we are introduced to them as friends, not lovers. But the feeling is there since forever. Normally I need some pages and several scenes till I am linked with the main character and when the author decides to cut that chance it's risky and even useless. Those who do try to make up for it with flashbacks, which annoys me as the result is not the same at all, since it fades and reaches that vacuous state and sometimes that pretentious streak. It seems like the author is arrogant enough to think you will fall for it and love the story anyway. But when the author does it well, she does it well. Period. She made me care for the characters' lives since the first page, she made me suffer with them and she made me wish their connection to last forever. She made it.
For a story with youth in it, there is too much suffering and too much anguish to consider them just two hardened people with empty stomachs and leathery skin. The sadness drowns everything but Remee and Julian find in each other a little hope, a hope that they are not ended yet, that they still have a chance, a negligible possibility to have a better life because they already have each other, which means their souls are not wasted yet.
The raw reality sucks everything out like a black hole. But strangely it was all full of warmth and then erotism unexpectedly appears in the perfect moments. Those instants were so intimate and touching I stopped feeling like an spectator of the show to become the protagonist. I could sense my mouth was dry and my lungs had problems breathing in. If I could have come out of my body in that exact second, I'm sure my pupils would have expanded hiding the whole color of my eye. I can count with the fingers of one hand the number of times I felt my own blood pounding in my ears, and that scene is one of those.
As a proper love story, it revolves around Remee and Julian. But people are not islands, so lots of characters' paths cross with their own, showing miseries and sadness in a way or another, but also true beauty and generosity. Some of them were despicable, but mostly they gave away a piece of goodness in a city that doesn't welcome outcasts. I can't shake it that we have a concept of poverty that is far away from us. We westernized people think hungry and cold and scarcity don't happen that close, but this reality exists.
Some of those secondary characters are worth being mentioned. I liked Crash a lot. He's deaf and a believable one (I have a long story with deaf characters in books, I'm not going to dwell on it right now). It was funny because Remee is mute, so when they are together Remee hears, translates to Crash, and Crash speaks. It sounds like a bad joke, to the point that I even expected the blind person to appear, but he didn't. It just shows that although the dramatic flair rules, you can find amusing situations to keep you above water. And then we have Pasha, the selfless Russian kid, and that enigmatic person who keeps posting Remee's photo in the streets. We can't forget Gem and even less, Cassey. I was angry at Cassey sometimes, as she helps Remee and Julian but not enough for me. Still, she does more than anybody else does for them, so I'm not being fair with her. There is kindness out there.
The ending is perfect. I feared during the whole story there would be no HEA, and I was going to be content with anything that wouldn't end up in separate ways or a death. I didn't expect such beauty. There is an epilogue, and I really hate those, as they spoil the whole story with a super sappy scene I regret reading. But here that only page was so amazing and so special I'm at a loss for words. Julian and Remee, I'm at a loss for words.
