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No Matter What (Hearts of New York #3) by Cara Bastone

Summary (from the publisher): Sometimes love sends you back to the drawing board.

After a traumatic accident threatens the foundations of their happy marriage, a couple tries to rebuild and find their way back to each other—and themselves—in this tender, slow-burn romance.

Roz and Vin can’t look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It’s been a year since they survived a life-altering accident, and their marriage hasn’t been the same. But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things, until she discovers Vin has signed a new lease. So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: sign up for a figure-drawing class.

Between Roz’s determined attempts to improve her artistic skills and her adventures with her best friend, Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date and his footsteps in their previously unoccupied guest room. But it would all be a lot easier if Vin wasn’t Raffi’s older brother, and if she didn’t still find him incredibly, debilitatingly attractive and kind.

So kind, in fact, that Vin offers to let Roz draw him. What is she supposed to say? It’s probably better than her original plan of finding some random male model online, and she needs all the practice she can get. Plus, that’s sure to make a separation easier, right? Focus on every detail of your estranged spouse’s body while drawing him in the nude? But after the year they’ve spent avoiding each other, it feels good to see and be seen by one another again.

As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?

Review: Roz and Vin had a great marriage. But a year ago, they were in a traumatic accident. And everything has felt broken since. 

How does Cara Bastone do it? I am such a huge fan of her books and yet I was still so blown away by how raw and real and vulnerable this story is. Vin really had my heart. What an amazing blend of masculinity and tenderness. He is a man of few words - in fact, he knows he struggles to communicate - but he shows his devotion to those he loves through tender acts of service and care. 

Like a lot of readers, I am also sometimes frustrated by the miscommunication trope, which features heavily in Roz and Vin's story. However, Bastone used it in a way that felt real and true. These are two people who have been so incredibly rocked by what they went through. They are struggling to process what happened to them. This, mixed with Vin's struggle to fully communicate with words, led to a colossal breakdown in their understanding of each other. For me, this story felt like such a realistic portrayal of moving past a traumatic event that left you physically and mentally rocked. 

I also loved the NYC setting of this. Roz's sort of rundown two-bedroom apartment felt so gritty and realistic to me and I almost felt like I was there. And Roz's job!! So fun how she takes leftover food that would otherwise be trashed and comes up with recipes for how to use it. Also loved the way art and standup storytelling were incorporated into this as the ways they process their trauma. I also loved the way Vin's brother was incorporated into the story and how effortlessly it felt like these three loved each other. 

I cried twice reading this. I am always looking for stories about long-term loving marriages. Yes, this is a marriage in crisis story but it's also the story of how they come back to each other and the deep swell of love and devotion these two have for each other felt so sincere and true. These are ordinary people with ordinary lives. They aren't beautiful or wealthy or glamorous. But their love is extraordinary. 

I switched back and forth between the physical and audio for this. Like all of her books, this was brilliant on audio. Narrator Alex Finke breathes such life into Cara's already realistic dialogue and scenes and made this felt performative and real. 

Favorite quotes: 

"Well, she walked in, wearing that sweater, and her hair and that smile and I just...recognized her. That's the best I can describe it. I saw her and thought, Here comes my wife."

"But even when I thought I didn't have anything to offer her...I was still the right, I don't know, recipe. For her. It was just that...we fit. We. The two of us."

"Anyways, we fell in graphic, heart-stopping love, made sincere proclamations about eternity, tried (three or four times a week) to turn our bodies into one thing...and on the weekends Vin did things like grout and caulk and varnish our charmingly decrepit apartment."

"Even though we're in shambles I could still, unfortunately, live in this man's armpit."

Stars: 5

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