REVIEW: The Good Parts by Evann Normandin

The Good Parts by Evann Normandin: Rose has erased the memories of the life that broke her. Landon can’t accept losing the woman he once planned forever with.
So when he finds his way back into Rose’s life as a stranger, he makes a choice that changes everything: he’ll get to know her again and see if she can fall in love with him a second time. But their past isn’t as gone as Rose believes.

THE GOOD PARTS by Evann Normandin was an emotional romance about memory, grief, identity, and second chances, told through alternating timelines that slowly reveal the story Rose no longer remembers and Landon can’t forget.

Starting over without the memories that shaped her gives Rose the opportunity to discover who she is outside of the relationship, the heartbreak, and the grief she was trying to escape. I loved the questions her journey raises about whether our memories define us or whether we’re still ourselves without them.

Landon’s perspective brings an entirely different kind of emotional tension. He isn’t simply trying to win Rose back—he’s carrying the memories of their entire relationship while knowing she has no idea who he is to her. I appreciated how complicated that makes his decision to enter her life again. He wants another chance, but he also has to confront what it means to love someone who doesn’t remember loving you.

The alternating timelines worked for me. Knowing Landon’s present while discovering Rose’s past creates this constant tension between what the reader knows and what Rose doesn’t.

And the romance itself is what makes the premise so heartbreaking. Landon isn’t simply hoping Rose remembers him. He’s hoping that the person she is now might choose him without the history that once connected them. Watching their friendship develop while knowing everything he is keeping from her creates an emotional push and pull that stayed with me.

What I especially appreciated was that this isn’t simply a story about getting back what was lost. It’s about whether you can love someone across different
versions of yourself—and whether the painful parts of your history are actually part of what makes your life yours.

THE GOOD PARTS was an emotional, beautifully complicated story about love, memory, and the versions of ourselves we leave behind. Rose and Landon’s story goes far beyond whether they can find their way back to each other—it asks whether love can survive when the memories holding it together are gone. The alternating timelines, the weight of their shared history, and the possibility of falling in love all over again made this one I won’t soon forget.

Tropes & Vibes
💔 Second-chance romance
🧠 Memory loss
👫 Strangers to lovers
❤️ Rekindled connection
⏳ Dual timelines
🇬🇧 Edinburgh setting
💌 Lost love
✨ Emotional romance

QOTD: Could you fall in love with someone again if you had no memory of ever loving them before?

Book Info:

Publication: July 28, 2026 | Grand Central Publishing |

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.