Rating: 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Synopsis: Lou on the surface you would say is a heartless man who doesn’t care about anyone or anything due to the trauma he experienced in his childhood. His daughter needs a place to live due to the unexpected loss of her mother and Lou is not having it. Lou could careless about what his daughter or anyone is going through. But Lou can’t seem to keep his distance from Symantha who he just seems to be drawn to. Symantha is living her best life, she is carefree, and does not care about having any type of relationship goals, she just wants to one night em and leave em but Lou is a mystery to her and she just can’t help exploring that mystery and seeing what Lou is all about.

Opinion: Listen AshleyNicole has quickly moved up on my favorite authors list as this woman comes with the 🔥 each and every time but The Closer I Get To You tho 🔥 🔥 🔥. 

When I say this book is 🔥 I mean it. AshleyNicoles protagonist have character and depth and I love that about her books. Lou had me hating him…I was like “WTF Lou really” for the first couple of chapters but then there was a turn and you realized damn Lou must have really gone through some trauma. At that point I had to prevent myself from looking ahead to get the answers I was seeking. 

I loved how Lou’s daughter wouldn’t just sit back and let him be disconnected from her. She wanted her father and she was going to push in her own way until she got what she needed from him because he was her only parent left. When Lou bonded with his daughter for the first time I cried real tears it was just so emotional to me and it was like I could feel her pain. It was so good to see their father daughter relationship shift as Lou continued to get the help he needed. 

Symantha was my girl, she was living her life and loving it until she met Lou. I loved how much patience she had with Lou as he worked through his trauma and never once did she judge him. When Lou finally opened up about his childhood I cried real tears again because it was just too much. 

This book just made me think about how many people have suffered trauma in their childhood and live their life in their own little shell not caring about anything going on around them. This book had me in my feeling the entire time I was reading it. Ashley said this was a slow burn and she was right but it was so necessary because this was a deep one. I found myself not really even caring about the love story as much as I cared about Lou getting help and Symantha being there as his friend above anything else. It actually made the romance part that much better when I finally got to it. 

If you don’t mind shedding a couple of tears while your reading and you need a book that is not your average love story I highly highly recommend this book! Happy Reading!!!