Holly lost her mother six months ago to cancer, but she’s not stuck in her mind about it. She’s lucky to have a loving father, Jeff, and her best friend Nils is her next door neighbor with whom she spends most days in the backyard tool shed together, talking.

But Holly IS mourning her mother’s loss deeply, even if she thinks she isn’t. She’s involved with Paul, having sex, despite the fact he has a girlfriend. Then things get complicated with Nils, and Holly finds herself making enemies with her female friends. When things come tumbling down and the secrets of what Holly’s been doing spill, she’ll finally have to fess up to her grief and make solid decisions about who she is and what she wants in her life.

Nothing Like You is a character-driven story, and Holly is the type of girl you want to continuously give hugs to. She’s not acting as she acts for attention; she’s not entirely conscious of her actions, despite the fact she knows what she’s doing will eventually hurt people she cares deeply about.

The relationships among characters in this book are well done. Holly and best friend Nils have a very believable friendship. Quite frankly, their friendship development reminded me a lot of what friendships were really like in high school. It moved in waves and some times, they spent hours together and sometimes they went days without seeing each other, and it was okay. Holly has a wonderful relationship with her father, and it’s actually quite a refreshing thing to see. And not only were the established relationships well done, but Holly opened herself up to meeting new people in forging a friendship with Saskia, a girl she’d once judged as out of her league and annoying. From the beginning, too, we know exactly what the relationship between Holly and Paul would be, and it remained in that state throughout the book.

Plot wise, there’s really not too much going on here, and because of the strength in character development, it’s not necessary to have a heavy plot. Instead, this is a book invested in feeling, and Strasnick gets those feelings spot on.

Throughout the book, I both liked and disliked Holly. More than that, I think I really sympathized with her: she’d had a great loss not too long ago, and it was a loss with which she had to grapple even further because it was to breast cancer. It’d linger in her mind forever that she, too, might fall victim to the illness down the road. I really disliked some of the other decisions Holly made when it came to keeping secrets and not fessing up to her wrongdoings at any of the opportunities she had, but I still couldn’t necessarily be mad at her.

My only criticism of the book is that it’s not particularly memorable in a sea of books that feature similar elements: strong characters, parental loss, and finding oneself. The writing is efficient, and while the emotions are real and the situations feel authentic, it’s probably not going to stand out in my mind too long.

This is a quick read, and it’s one that readers will fall into quite quickly and not want to let go of until finished. Fans of Sarah Dessen, Siobhan Vivian, and Elizabeth Scott will find a lot to appreciate here. There is a lot of sex and drinking — more than what is featured in these similar authors — but I think because Holly realizes what she’s doing is not okay, readers will not get too tangled in this.

Despite what sounds a little depressing, Nothing Like You does have a positive and optimistic ending that will leave readers feeling hopeful. Rooting for Holly will pay off.