This story just enveloped me in a great big hug. The characters became friends to me (I know I have issues before you start!). Ok, I know what you are thinking. This is totally weird. A family of three where the father is gay, mother is . . . let's say. . . straight, and they have a daughter (created not by artificial means). And before you ask, no, they are not a couple. In my opinion this is weirder than 'I've Got Mail'. What puzzled me most was how it is possible (even in a fictional sense) for a gay man to have child. If you are bothered by this, please don't let this spoil your reading as all will be explained by the end.

Okay, so Ibby’s gay and prone to disastrous dates, while couples’ counsellor Maggie spends her days helping people with their relationship problems despite having no sex life of her own. Nevertheless, they’re devoted to bringing up teenage daughter Amelia – the result of a drunken one-night stand when they were students – in a stable and loving family.The book features characters that both change overtime and act unpredictably. Are there instances where the way a character acts contradicts who we believe that character to truly be on the inside? Did this change your judgment about a specific character? How and why did it or didn’t it shift? Maggie and Ibby and not your conventional couple. But they do have two things in common, they are bestest friends and they have a teenage daughter together. From the New York Times bestselling author of One Italian Summer and In Five Years comes an intensely romantic modern recounting of the greatest love story ever told—narrated by the girl Romeo was supposed to love. The three of them together are an awesome family that doesn't need anybody else (aka love interests for the parents) to function and be complete. They are complete and they're happy but there is always room for more. Len Stephens is this guy in our class we don’t hang out with. Charlie calls him “toxic,” but most people just call him an ass. He’s sarcastic, and his hair is too long and messy, like he cuts it himself or something.

Ibby was 100% my favorite character, although Mags was a close second! Ibby and his Indiana Jones enthusiasm was ridiculous, but his witty replies more than made up for it and it was impossible to hate him. Memories are often described in the book. What are some of the characters’ memories portrayed in the book? What role do these memories play in the story? How have your own memories influenced your present-day choices? Of all the characters, the one that went through the most development was Jordan. Compare Jordan from the beginning to Jordan from the end, and it’ll read like a completely different person. I loved seeing him recover and reconnect with his old flame and friends.A feel good, heart-warming novel about about first loves and second chances. Fans of Holly Martin, Dani Atkins and Heidi Swain will be captivated. Anyway, we were on the dance floor and my hair got in my eyes, and Rob brushed it away and kissed my cheek. My hair is always getting in my eyes, and my father kisses my cheek, so I hardly think that counts as a make-out session. It just happened to be in public, to a slow song. It's been a while since I've read a book that I've flown through within a day or two and 'When You Were Mine' had me completed hooked from start to finish - what a brilliant story-line! Kudos to Lisa Swift for coming up with the idea. Maggie, Ibby and Amelia are an unconventional family, in which, a drunken moment with a straight woman and a gay man, ended in a pregnancy. I don't know why I adored this extremely strange occurrence so much, however I just fell in love with the uniqueness towards this family. The family as a whole are just absolutely perfect - Maggie and Ibby are wonderful parents and incredible characters in general. Amelia is a typical 13-year-old, who takes pride in her family and takes pleasure in trying to find a boyfriend for the two of them. She is extremely supportive of her father when it comes to the LGBT community and I really respected the maturity she held. While this family came to be under circumstances you wouldn't believe, it all worked so extremely well, with the help that Maggie and Ibby are the best of friends! This book is brimming with fantastic characters that I loved getting to know. Ibby. Maggie and Other Max have been friends since their student days and as the story progresses you get an insight into events that happened during that time that they no longer talk about.

But those two problems didn’t keep me from falling completely in love with this book. The best part of it was absolutely the family. Ibby and Mags weren’t perfect, but they were amazing parents. Both Ibby and Mags and also Melie were totally aware of how untraditional their family was, but they were always fine when they were asked questions about it, especially from people who didn’t understand how their family worked. And no matter what, Ibby and Mags always put Melie first. This was a cute read, though a slow and confusing one to start with. A book on family and relationships where friendship and love mattered. I guess maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal if I had, you know, done it myself. It’s not that I’m opposed to sex or anything. I mean, morally speaking. You want to know my problem, actually? It’s that I don’t feel particularly moral about the whole thing. It’s like this girl I used to know, Sarah, who never ate meat. Literally, in her entire life, she never had a hamburger. Her parents didn’t eat meat, and she was just raised that way. Anyway, one day her dad started eating it again, and all of a sudden it was in their house and on the table, and I remember her telling me how weird that seemed, how unnatural. Like all of a sudden she was supposed to just start eating meat and it was supposed to seem normal. She was a vegetarian, for crying out loud. It seems weird to just start. Like changing something fundamental about who you are. The story was witty, funny and very easy to follow. You got to get inside the heads of Maggie, Ibby, Jordan and Amelia. I loved seeing these four different points of views play out throughout the book. It was so refreshing to see the different sides come together and how they all fit in with each other.Of course this is how Charlie sees it. The problem is, that isn’t exactly what happened. It’s not even close. Let me explain. Ibby is gay and on the look out for a man, but he has to fit in and accept Maggie and daughter Amelia. Which doesn't always go down too well when he tells them that he lives with Maggie and has a Teenage Daughter. Plain and simple, WYWM was a stunning read and I can’t wait for the author’s next release under this pen name. Even with its light hearted tone, the novel discusses some weighty issues like homophobia, coming of age and drug addiction. This is the story of a family wading through the storm and also that of a friendship beating the odds. The characters are likable, good hearted (a rare breed indeed) even with the human frailities and . . . ya, they are going to stay with me for a very long time. I’m serious, Rose. I think it’s going to work out this time.” I glance over at her, and her face looks set, determined. Celebratory, even. Which, if you know Charlie, makes a lot of sense. Deciding to do something and doing it are basically the same thing in her world.