Book ~ "Love You More" (2026) Emily Giffin

From Goodreads ~ Billie has built the perfect life. Her practice as a doctor in New York City is thriving and she’s finally found the right partner in Dean after years spent trying to move on from her high-school sweetheart, Mick. Their young love had been intense and true but distance and ambition pulled them apart when she left Wisconsin for medical school.

Then one morning, just after accepting Dean’s romantic marriage proposal, Billie’s phone rings. It’s Mick - calling for the first time in nearly a decade. His news is urgent, and in a moment, everything changes.

As Billie boards a plane back to Wisconsin, the past comes rushing in - her friendships from home, the love she shared with Mick and the choices that shaped them. What awaits her is a reckoning with what she’s lost, what she’s built, and what she still wants.

Billie is in her late 30s and is a successful doctor in New York City who is newly engaged to Dean, a trauma surgeon. She believes she has moved on from Mick, her high-school sweetheart in Wisconsin, who had broken up with her when she moved away for medical school. Shortly after accepting Dean’s proposal, Billie receives an unexpected call from Mick, who tells her that her longtime best friend, Erin, has died in a car accident. Erin leaves behind her eleven-year-old daughter, Phoebe, and Billie returns to her Wisconsin hometown to help with the situation and support Phoebe. 

Though she's visited back home over the years, Billie reconnects with old friends and with Mick in their grief, bringing back memories of their relationship and the life she once had. Taking responsibility for Phoebe has some life changing decisions to make that will affect her life with Dean.

This book was a quick read and it was okay, not great. It is written in first person perspective in Billie's voice. As a head's up, there is swearing.

I found the story unrealistic. Billie is in her late 30s, has a successful career, a life and friends she loves in New York City and is in an adult relationship with Dean. Yet the second she is back home, her feelings for Mick, who she hasn't seen in about 15 years when he broke up with her, are still there? I found that hard to believe. It didn't seem like she has the maturity of someone who has achieved so much and is almost 40. She was prepared to throw it all away to take guardianship of Phoebe, regardless of how Dean felt about it and how this would disrupt their lives. It was odd that Mick and Billie are surprised to find out from Erin's mom, who has Alzheimer's, that they are expected to have custody of Phoebe. I would think that in the 30 years Billie and Erin had been friends that the topic would have come up. No one seemed overly sad Erin had unexpectedly died. Instead chores were checked off. The day after the funeral her friends packed up her condo. A couple days later Erin's mom was moved into a home.