a powerful, thought provoking, thought easing, and important book. this book got my heart and squeezed it, then it gave it a huge hug, then it made it chuckle. this book felt like a bedtime story for the older folk. something you want to be told by your favourite person, something you want to give to you favourite person. this story is definitely a must for a lot of people with these same issues relevant to this book, actually something we should all be reading, because it will help, it will help a lot.
i wanted to go and somehow heal the world after reading this book. and make everyone in my life know how important they are.
i got a little emotional at this book and i know it will stick with me.
this book brings us to Noa and Elliot over a period of time in their lives. Noa doesn't have confidence in herself and about herself. she has zero self worth and of course this leads the wrong people to take advantage of her. and mostly take advantage of her need for someone, anyone to love her.
Elliot is the carer for his brother whilst his mother is working. Elliot is struggling. he has many behaviours to cope which lead to him becoming quite poorly with those and what he learns from his home environment.
Noa and Elliot meet at school and then later. and we drift and bounce around getting to know them both and how they come to be and how they come to grow older. its shines a light on what shapes people, what forces people, what changes people. it shows how what we go through can impact us in many different ways and is different for those involved and how they might cope giving who they already might be, what they already might have been through. not just for the worst though. because how love and support is key, how finding connections is important possibly key.
i love the way Emily writes with such knowledge and depth of her characters. and also us as people. she writes our characters lives like she truly does know them, feel them, make them come alive for us as readers. so that very quickly we come to know them ourselves. we come to really care for them and what is happening and what will happen going forward for them.
its a raw read at times and touches upon themes that cover mental health especially. but its done with kind hands. its done with a way that impacts without overwhelming. and she manages to balance between those moments and then the lighter quirky ones. somehow together this makes it all the more powerful and heartfelt to read and become involved in.
i wanted to wrap these characters up and make sure they were ok. i wanted to actually make sure they were ok! they had to be. i cared too much now. blast Emily for doing this to me.

Loved the writing style in this! It felt so different to other books I've read under the literary/romance genre; it sort of felt like the writer kept breaking the fourth wall & as the reader I almost felt like a fly on the wall watching these two main characters which made the entire book more enjoyable for me & made it feel more unique.

While reading this, I kept getting flashbacks of growing up reading Jacqueline Wilson books— I guess it's because of how well Slapper fleshes out her characters, just like her previous book Everyone I Know is Dying she's so good at making them feel like actual people & getting you attached to them. The realness in them for me comes from how not flawless they are, there were plenty of times where both MCs but in particular Noa almost felt unlikeable to me but the character development is so well done, I still loved her by the end. I especially like the focus on mental health in Emily's books, it never feels insensitive or overdone to me & gives another layer to the characters & story as a whole.

I enjoyed the slow burn romance element of this story & seeing how things developed between Noa & Elliot. I especially liked reading the chapters of how they met as teenagers to get a better understanding of them as individuals as well as their relationship. The only thing is, with the time jump chapters, there were a few moments where things started feeling repetitive; as much as I like seeing the different perspectives for the same scenes, it might have been a little overdone for me sometimes. That's about the only thing that lowered my rating for this, otherwise I loved the concept & thought it was well executed.

I think if you enjoyed Wilson's books growing up & love a Sally Rooney novel, get this on your tbr.

Thank you HQ & Netgalley for my free eARC!

This book hit in all the right places for me, I really enjoyed Everyone I Know Is Dying and was delighted to receive an ARC for this book. It's an experience for sure. Slapper's writing is immersive and her characters feel real and relatable and for a big part of the book I was taken back to those feelings of first falling in love, the insecurity, the fear, it was all very masterfully delivered.

The jumbled timeline worked really well for me and I felt that past and previous selves were distict and well fleshed out. There is something very
intimate and raw that runs through this book and you definitely feel you're on the journey with the characters.

If you enjoyed EIKID and Emily Slepper's brilliant writing, then you're in for a treat. Many thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for my review copy, all opinions are my own.

Oh I really loved this.
I loved Emily Slapper’s last book so I was really looking forward to this.
I loved both Noa and Elliot. I especially loved the opening with Nora’s terrible boyfriends. Everything felt so well-realised.
I loved how the book teased out their relationship and the context around their childhood.
I really loved the non-linear chapters and the range of timescales too.
I really loved these two! Forever rooting for them.
4 stars.

Girl meets boy, boy meets girl. Friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, friends..but life gets in the way.

This book offers a powerful and intimate look into the minds of Noa and Elliot. Both characters grapple with deep insecurities and uncertainties about love and life — what does "normal" even mean? Can they trust their feelings? Will anyone truly stay? And how much of what they experience is real versus just in their heads?

The story pulls you right into their emotional struggles, making it impossible not to empathize. I found myself mentally reaching out to them, wanting to offer comfort or guidance. Their highs felt like my own victories, and their lows hit hard, leaving me emotionally drained by the end.

I’ll admit, I was unsure after the first few chapters if this was the right read for me, but I’m so glad I stuck with it. The writing is stunningly authentic, making their journey feel raw and genuine. This isn’t just a story — it’s an emotional experience that stays with you long after you finish.

Unfortunately I just couldn’t get in to this at all. The plot felt disjointed, jumping between Elliot & Noah’s POVs and different points in their lives, whilst also kind of repeating some of the same events from their different POVs.

I always appreciate seeing mental health representation in literature, especially when it’s not romanticised, but it was quite difficult to read in this book. I’m not sure why but I just found it incredibly morose. I didn’t feel particularly invested in either Elliot or Noa.

I absolutely loved Everyone I Know is Dying, so I couldn’t wait to read this book.

The book centres - non-chronologically - around the lives of Noa and Elliot, who met as teenagers and then fall into each other’s lives as adults. Neither of them relates easily to the world or to other people, but they relate to each other perfectly. The book, really, deals with whether or not that is enough to sustain a relationship or a shared life.

I found the prose slightly more meandering than in EIKID - some unnecessary levels of detail in some of the explanations - but the characters come to life on the page and the line is drawn well between Noa and Elliot as teenagers and the adults they become. The descriptions of OCD and learning delays fit into the story well but, at times, were I thought slightly over-detailed in the context of the rhythm of the book.

This didn’t take away though from the fact it’s a good story, written well. Recommend.

Ooof, I was not ready for the nostalgia and throwback to secondary school that came with reading It Might Never Happen. For parts of this, I felt like I was a teenager facing the emotions and feelings in the situations Noa and Elliot were dealing with, for a hot second, I was reliving moments from my own life and teen years! A well-written and emotional read that left me a little numb when I finished it!

Thank you so much to Emily Slapper, HQ and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this. I'm ✌🏻 for ✌🏻
with books that Emily has written so far, I can't wait to see what comes next! It Might Never Happen is out 11th September 2025!

This book cracked me open. It Might Never Happen doesn’t just tell a story, it exposes the raw, hidden places we spend years trying to avoid. Every page made me feel like I was holding someone’s real journal, something confessional and trembling, something that wasn’t meant to be read but needed to be written. The writing is sharp, spare, and intimately observant. It doesn’t try to decorate pain, it just presents it honestly, without apology. There’s a kind of poetry in the emotional chaos here, and even when it hurt, I felt grateful for it. This isn’t a love story in the traditional sense. It’s a story about how hard it is to be, how much we ask of love, and how slowly we learn to ask those same things of ourselves. I love how unflinching it is. It doesn’t try to fix its characters or promise some bright ribbon-wrapped resolution. It just walks with them, and with you, through all the mess, and somehow makes it feel survivable. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.

This is a most amazing insight into the minds of Noa and Elliot.
Both are insecure and struggle with relationships. What is 'normal'? How does life work? Will anyone ever love me? Will it last? What is real and what is in my head?
The reader is drawn in to their dilemmas and feels their pain and emotions. I found myself speaking to them and trying to give advice. Cheering when things are going well, and crying with them when it all turns pear shaped.
By the end of the book, I felt worn out emotionally, having lived their lives because the writing was so amazing.
I have to be honest and admit that after the first couple of chapters, I wasn't sure this book was for me, but I'm so pleased that I read on.
An emotionally real book.
Thanks to Emily, NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book.

A raw and unflinching exploration of love, self-worth and the relationships that shape us.

Noa is desperate to be loved. More than her studies, her job, her friends or even her family, she just wants to belong to someone. She is convinced that if someone chooses her, she will finally be happy. Elliot, on the other hand, is paralysed by fear—fear of what will happen to his brother if he is not there to protect him, fear that his friends will realise he has no opinions of his own, fear that the girl he loves will see through him entirely.

When Noa and Elliot meet, there is an instant connection. Each of them hopes that their love will be enough to silence the voices of self-doubt and insecurity. But can you truly love someone else when you have never learned to love yourself?

Emily Slapper delivers a beautifully painful and deeply relatable story about love in all its messy, destructive and redemptive forms. This is a book about childhood trauma, mental health, self-worth and the ways in which human connection can both heal and break us. It is brutally honest, sometimes heartbreaking and always compelling. A must-read for anyone who has ever questioned whether they are enough.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for answering my prayers and letting me have an e-ARC of this title.

Emily Slapper's Everyone I Know Is Dying was one of my top reads of 2024 which made me super eager to read this title. While it has some similarities in examining mental health and interpersonal relationships, it is also a completely different narrative.

Throughout this book we are following the lives of Noa and Elliot from childhood to young adulthood. Noa doesn't have much confidence in herself and her self worth, she just wants to be loved but this has lead to some toxic relationships and encounters. Elliot cares for his brother while his mother works resulting in a strained and friction-full atmosphere, from a young age Elliot develops OCD and harmful learned behaviours resulting from his environment. The book jumps around between different ages to give a fuller picture and examine the contributing factors to the mindset and behaviours of the characters, the main storyline being how Noa and Elliot came to meet at school and how they interact years later when they meet again.

In essence this story is looking at how the people around us help shape us; childhood trauma, finding love and connection, mental health, self worth and the alchemy of these things in real life.

I really love the depth to these characters and the dissection of their lives, however, I found that there were some bits that felt a bit unnecessary like the brackets that seemed to point out obvious things. And also note the storyline is not chronological if that is something that might bug you!

If you enjoyed Everyone I Know Is Dying, Normal People or My Year of Rest and Relaxation then I would recommend giving this a read too :)

This is a poignant account of two people who are struggling with romantic relationships and the pressures of life. Noa is insecure and unsure of who she is or should be. She changes herself to suit whichever man she's dating. Elliot is suicidal, struggling with OCD and actively evaded relationships and friendships.

The book looks at their history, part of which is shared, and tracks why they've ended up the way that they are.

This is a sensitive and well written account that's entirely relatable. The dialogue is strong and punchy and I empathised with both the characters. This is a moving and beautifully written book.

I also love that the setting is different and a large portion of the action is in Stoke on Trent.