Book Summary: 

Harper is anxiously awaiting placement into a top oral surgery residency program when she crashes (literally) into Dan. Harper would rather endure a Novocaine-free root canal than face any distractions, even one this adorable. A first-year dental student with a family legacy to contend with, Dan doesn’t have the same passion for pulling teeth that Harper does. Though he finds himself falling for her, he is willing to play by Harper’s rules. So with the greatest of intentions and the poorest of follow-throughs, the two set out to be “just friends.” But as they get to know each other better, Harper fears that trading fillings for feelings may make her lose control and can’t risk her carefully ordered life coming undone, no matter how drool-worthy Dan is.

Blood, gore, and extra-long roots? No problem. The idea of falling in love? Torture.

My Review:

There were moments in A Brush with Love where I laughed so hard, I thought I was going to pull a muscle. That is the talent of Mazey Eddings, one moment she can make you want to cry a river and the next you are laughing until you snort (not like I did that…more than once…twice.)

Harper has two immediate goals in life – to finish dental school and get her top residency pick. After that, she will commit her life to helping people and making a difference. As far as she was concerned, there wasn’t room for anything else, no matter what her friends said. She spent most of her life building up walls, protecting herself, and doing what it took to manage her anxiety. What she didn’t plan for is a certain green eyed, jaw-dropping gorgeous man with a mind erasing dimple colliding with those walls and destroying all of her hard earned work. With graduation so close and her future set, Harper can’t get “gooey” over some boy. Declaring that despite the incredible chemistry her and Dan seem to have, she can only offer a friendship, setting off an epic battle between heart and mind that will leave no survivors.

I don’t think I exhaled until I finished this book. Talk about intensive! Mazey is the master of putting you into the shoes of her neurodiverse characters. Every feeling, the loss sense of control, the shifting of the world surrounding them, how they believe the world sees them – she hands it all to the reader as if we requested a fully immersive experience.

Don’t even get me started on Harper and Dan. Dan is an absolute daydream! A huge part of me wondered (especially since Mazey is a dentist), how much of his character is modeled after her boyfriend. If that man is even a fraction of the “swooniness” that is Dan, I am insanely jealous! As far as book boyfriend’s go, he just got bumped to the top of the list!

Asides for drooling over Dan, there were so many things to love about this book, the close friendships, the vulnerability, the support, and Mazey’s constant effort to remove the stigma around mental health, therapy, and seeking help. We never know what someone is going through and how our words can cut them and push their fears deeper. Harper’s friends meant well but without knowing the level of her anxiety, the ferocious monster it truly was, they only added to her pain, self doubt, self loathing, and overcompensation. 

Mazey also has the ability to create the most beautiful moments when her characters are intimate. It was no different when Harper and Dan slept together for the first time. You could almost feel the overwhelming sensations that Harper was experiencing and the terror of just letting go. The love and support Dan showed during not just those moments but all others would make the strongest person tear up.

What got me the most is when we learned Harper’s “why”, why she had to be the best, had to succeed, what it all stood for, what it represented if she failed. When I finished reading that part, I took a moment and just said “Wow”. Up until that reveal, you were simply an outsider looking in with no clear understanding as to why someone would subject themselves to that type of pressure or level of perfection but when she shares her truth with Dan, it all clicks and you feel almost as helpless as he does when the monster takes over – you can’t fight that type of fuel on your own. That particular moment was so well written, you could almost see the two parts of Harper at war with each other and the brutal beating her wants and happiness were taking. Alongside her, Dan was fighting his own struggles and demons while trying to be a rock for Harper, I can only imagine how exhausting that must have been. 

When Harper described all the ways she felt like she could have prevented the accident, I was right there with her. While I can’t speak for anyone else, the sudden loss of my mother had me questioning everything – every sign, every conversation, any and everything that I could have done differently. We take the burden of responsibility because if it wasn’t our fault, if we couldn’t have prevented – that just proves life is that cruel. So to cope with it, we pull in the blame and take on self loathing, judgment, and assignment in fault because that means the universe doesn’t hate us, it just pities us and while that doesn’t seem better, in a really messed up way, it is.

I love Thu, Lizzie, and Indira! I hate that I read The Plus One first because I can’t remember what happens with Thu and Alex or Harper and Dan! Lizzie’s story is waiting for me in my TBR stack so hopefully that helps bridge the gap in my memory. For anyone who loves Abby Jimenez and Emily Henry, Mazey Eddings is right there, ready to win your heart.