Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: August 2, 2016
Page Count: 400

**I was provided with an eArc via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!**

I was really excited when I got approved for this arc and I am even more happy that it held up to the hype I made for it myself. You Before Anyone Else is one of those books that kind of defy a certain categorization. On the one hand it is definitely YA – Finley and Eddie are around 18 years old, their romance is hot with sparks flying rather quickly but it is never explicit or anything like that. Then again, it also deals with NA issues – both of them are already out of school, working and living on their own or at least without parental supervision of any kind. They have do deal with problems that both teenagers and new adults have to face, the tiresome task of really narrowing down what you want to do with the rest of your life. So, I couldn’t put it in one genre for sure, but I enjoyed how it blurred the lines for both.

Finley and Eddie are such great main protagonists. They were often way more grown up than I thought they might be and they handled every twist and turn that life threw their way with responsibility and care. I would like to talk about those more, but that would spoil parts of the story. Let’s just say they are both family people and that was adorable. I think the blurb makes it seem like at least one of them is shallow or reckless, but that’s just not true and their love is the cutest. It starts out as real instant attraction, but definitely not love (because we all know how much insta-love sucks). From there on it builds to a sort of friendship and just then to even more, with the teasing and attraction being a constant companion and source of fun. In general, this book is really funny! I loved that about it.

It was sort of astounding to me how casually they were talking about castings for various well known designers and for whom they had already shot campaigns. I don’t read all that many model books and when it’s about actors, the people are mostly made up, so this kind of made me gush sometimes and I am not even that much into fashion. The whole atmosphere was really fun and different from my usual reads. I get that modeling wasn’t their ultimate life goal, but it was still cool to get a glimpse of that world.

I very much enjoyed how everything tied together in the end! It was a real happy ending, maybe an idealistic one in some parts but at the same time they made realistic choices. I know that sounds contradictory, but the book made you hopeful that dreams can come true, but that life isn’t the easiest thing to handle at the same time and needs constant work. So, that balance was great!

Fazit: 4/5 stars! It’s not a book that will keep you on the edge of your seat, but you will laugh and feel with Finley and Eddie as they try to figure out their life!

Does this seem like a book you’d be interested in? Do you read books that are focused on models?