Book Review: The Art of Feeling by Laura Tims

The Art of Feeling
by Laura Tims
Published on: August 15th 2017
Published by: HarperTeen
Purchase links: Amazon | Book Depository

Synopsis:

Perfect for fans of Jennifer Niven’s New York Times bestseller All the Bright Places, this contemporary YA novel explores the friendship between a girl in constant pain and a boy who feels nothing at all.

Since the car accident, Samantha Herring has been in pain, not only from her leg injury, but also from her mother’s death, which has devastated her family. After pushing away her friends, Sam has receded into a fog of depression. But then Sam meets Eliot, a reckless loner with an attitude and an amazing secret—he can’t feel any pain. At first, Sam is jealous.

But then she learns more about his medical condition…and his self-destructive tendencies. In fact, Eliot doesn’t seem to care about anything at all—except maybe Sam. As they grow closer, they begin to confront Sam’s painful memories of the accident—memories that may hold a startling truth about what really happened that day.

Review

I'm going to sound exaggerated in this review but what the heck! This book has me blown away! Everything about this The Art of Feeling is love, love, love! I adore the characters and Sam and Eliot's relationship is the kind of romance that is to die for!

Eliot and Sam started out as just schoolmates who didn't really like each other but then became unlikely friends and then later became best friends. I feel like it's rare for main characters in YA standalone books to have such slow development romance-wise who, from not knowing each other, became best friends before being romantically involved. Needless to say, their relationship is the most natural thing in this book.

The Art of Feeling delves into so many topics; grief, familial relationships, friendships, (animal relationships!), and Eliot's illness. Romance isn't actually the main focus. In fact, the romance only became apparent during the last chapters of the book, but I'll be damned if Eliot and Sam doesn't make you all gooey on the inside even when they were just best friends. 

The Art of Feeling is cute, sad, and funny. It has all the good stuff rolled into one, it's perfect! The blurb says its perfect for fans of All the Bright Places, maybe because there's a LITTLE similarity between the two but really, it's almost negligible that I think it's unfair to compare this book to AtBP. But frankly speaking, without actually comparing comparing the two, I enjoyed this more than AtBP.

Disclaimer: A advance review copy was provided by HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars!