A heartbreaking, thought provoking love story about memory, grief, and the pieces of ourselves we choose to keep.
Release date: July 28, 2026
Publisher: Grand Central
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Synopsis:
She erased their past. He’s rewriting their future.
When Landon receives a letter from Rose—the woman he once planned forever with—he learns their love story is over. She’s undergone a radical memory-erasing treatment, leaving behind her grief, her past… and him. But Landon can’t bear to lose the love of his life. If she fell for him once, couldn’t she fall for him again?
Now living in Edinburgh, Rose’s world is a blank canvas, and she’s dating someone new. When Landon reenters her life as a stranger, they become fast friends, their lives entwining once more. But what Rose doesn’t know is that this new friend carries the weight of everything they once shared: their firsts, their marriage, and the heartbreak they barely survived. And when she starts exhibiting strange symptoms, it becomes clear their history isn’t gone—it’s just buried. And remembering could come at a devastating cost.
Told in alternating timelines—his from the present, hers from the past—The Good Parts is an achingly poignant story about the people we become across a lifetime, and the beauty of finding our way with what remains.
Review:
This is absolutely the kind of book that belongs in a book club because I had SO many thoughts, questions, and feelings while reading it. The Good Parts is an emotional, complicated, devastating love story that asks fascinating questions about memory, identity, grief, and the morality of choosing what parts of ourselves we want to erase.
The concept of a memory erasing pill immediately grabbed me because there are so many layers to unpack. If you could remove your deepest pain, would you? Would you still be the same person afterward? Are our hardest moments just wounds, or are they also part of what shapes us? This book doesn’t give easy answers, and honestly, I loved that it left room for discussion.
From the beginning, you know something truly heartbreaking must have happened for Rose to make such an enormous decision without even talking to Landon first. Watching their story unfold across timelines made their relationship feel incredibly human—messy, beautiful, painful, and filled with all the complicated pieces that come with loving someone for a lifetime.
I was not emotionally prepared for the ending. It was bittersweet, poignant, and completely true to Rose and Landon’s journey. It wasn’t the ending I expected, but it was the ending their story needed. Beautiful, unique, and quietly devastating, this is a book that will stay with you long after the final page.
Perfect for Readers Who Love
- Emotional book club fiction that sparks deep conversations
- Complicated love stories filled with heartbreak and hope
- Thought provoking “what would you do?” concepts
- Character driven stories about grief, healing, and letting go
Overall rating: 4/5
Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.
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