This is also a story of a young woman dreaming of a man who would see past her circumstance, a man who would embrace all her quirks and bends, a man who would love her boys as if they were his own, but never in a million years expecting to find such a man living across the street from her. It takes centre stage, filling the pages with innumerable acts of true love and conscientious parenting, and while I would have been more than happy just spending time in the Casillas household, watching their every interaction, we know that this is not just that kind of love story.

We meet them as they start a new life in a new city, a new neighbourhood, a new house to call their home, and from the start, our hearts beam from witnessing the kind of selflessness Diana demonstrates daily towards her two wards. Because for Diana, the sun rises and sets on her two boys, and for them, there is nothing she would not make herself do. She forces herself to be tough even her heart is crumbling, to smile even when all she wants to do is cry for days on end, and to keep growing up even though she thought she was done growing a long time ago. She has spent the past two years of her life putting her nephews’ happiness and wellbeing first while pushing aside her sorrow, making sure that the great tragedy that has changed their family forever does not destroy their young spirits too. Like I shouldn’t think they made my life better when the only reason they were mine, lighting my life up, was because of something awful.ĭiana Casillas never expected to become sole guardian of two of the brightest lights in her life, but at twenty-nine, she is not just an aunt and adoptive mother to her two young nephews, Josh and Louie, but also the kind of reluctant role model she never thought she’d have to be. Like I shouldn’t, because they weren’t supposed to be mine to begin with. Sometimes I felt like a traitor for how much I loved them. This was one of the most beautiful, poignant stories I have ever read, and one I am recommending without reservation. Her tone is playful yet powerful, light yet moving, and with her every sentence, she slays the reader’s heart into pieces. Ms Zapata truly astonishes with the fluidity of her writing, with her eloquent, crisp style that pulls you in immediately and holds you spellbound until the end. Picked on a whim, I never expected to find this perfect of a story, never even hoped I would connect with it so profoundly and adore its characters so much, but I have fallen head over heels for Mariana Zapata’s extraordinary voice within minutes of opening this book. I am never going to have enough talent at my disposal to fully express how much this book has changed me, how much it has shifted something in me and made me take note of every single word in it.

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