The book also spends a lot of time on the whole mess of un-effing Bens relationships with his bandmates, and his career, and his music, so there is a lot going on here.

There was one weird moment about a third of the way through the book where Stan told someone else that he and Ben were working on getting back together and I was all: ? Did I miss a scene? Have they had that conversation? But other than that weird jump, I thought the relationship development flowed very realistically and sensitively. It is clear very early on that the love is still there for Ben and Stan, but they (rightly) take the process of getting back together in very slow fits and starts. This is definitely a slow-burn second chance at love, if such a thing is possible. Stan is in a much (much much) more stable place than he was in the last book or than Ben is in this one, but he has still lost some valuable aspects of himself in their breakup and his ensuing life and it was nice to see him regain them over the course of the book. This is definitely an up-from-the-depths-of-addiction story, and I do feel like it managed the incredibly hard task of making it clear that Ben was working to get better for himself and was not saved by the power of true love alone, while also still being an effective romance novel.

All of the backstory is pretty easy to infer and Stans eating disorder is only mentioned very lightly in this one, if that is something that kept you from reading the first. Weirdly, given how connected that all may sound, I do think you could pretty much read The Lost Boy as a stand alone second chance at love type story, without reading TIB first (or certainly without a reread of the first book).

The Impossible Boy by Anna Martin