Dear Agony by Georgia Cates

                                              ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐stars

Summary:
Dear Agony,

You've been my shadow, following me through childhood—filling my days and nights with terror and uncertainty. You cleverly disguised yourself as some form of pain or suffering as I grew into a young woman. We were unwavering companions … until I severed our ties.

I traded homelessness on the streets of New Orleans for a luxurious bed covered by the finest linens.
I traded dumpster diving for dinner in the finest restaurants.
I traded myself to a stranger—Bastien Pascal.

I have a good life within my platonic and mutually beneficial companionship with Bash.
He’s my friend. My mentor. My roommate.
Until everything changes.

I’m not supposed to get goosebumps when his hand brushes my skin.
I’m not supposed to be eager for his soothing touch following one of my nightmares.
I’m not supposed to think about what might happen if I reached out to him in the darkness.

Falling in love with him? Preposterous . . . unavoidable.

Agony, why are you back with a vengeance to rob me of this life I’ve come to love so dearly?

I’m finally happy. Don’t ruin this for me.

Always yours,
Rose

In this epic love story, Dear Agony forges a connection between an unlikely pair—a beautiful rose entwined in barbed wire and a shipwreck sinking into the darkest depths of the ocean. This agonizing romantic novel poses some gut-wrenching questions: What does a woman do when the man she loves is planning his own demise? And how far will she go to give him something to live for? 

This book lives up to its name! It is a heartbreaking story that you will definitely need to have a box of tissues beside you when you read it. It will rip your heart out and stomp on it. 

We as readers are introduced to our two main characters who come from completely different backgrounds but are able to find each other through a mutual friend, Vale who runs the Duets Foundation. It is difficult to tell what each of them are going through towards the beginning of the story. We are just led to believe that Rose has suffered some amount of trauma in her life and that Bastien  is having some sort of health issues. 

I loved each of these characters. They demonstrated incredible amounts of strength but at the same time were vulnerable. I feel like each of them needed love and were looking for it but they didn't know it themselves. When we meet Rose she is a homeless street performer and the author really makes you feel her heartache and desperation. Rose held such a strong capacity to love even though the people around her treated her like scum and she didn't think that her life would ever get better. 

I loved Bastien right away. His sense of humor and genuineness drew me to him. There were times when I didn't understand Bastien but I have never been through what he was going through and can't say that I wouldn't feel the same way about certain things. He made me angry but then I would feel guilty for judging him when the author would explain his thoughts on the matters at hand. 

I loved this book! It was different from the typical "wounded people meet each other and are fixed by each other" book. No one was "fixed" by the end of the book. Their love helped them to heal but the book was realistic in the sense that health problems don't always disappear. Relationships take a lot of work and these two had to work throughout the book. Rose had to take on more work brought about by the fact that Bastien was sick and that brought out the insecurities in him as well as feeling like a burden.