Stay With Me Series Review

The Stay With Me series juggles mental illnesses and overcoming them, but also finding the love within yourself and for another person. This specific series follows Ollie and Mia’s romantic relationship, while also focusing on their mental illnesses.

My favorite character in this series is Dr. Conway, who helped majority of the students in Dolor with their illnesses. She stuck up for Mia on more than one occasion, and was against most of the medications they had people take. Although she was the therapist and had no choice but to listen, I got the sense that she took her job more seriously than others. Her patients, Mia more so than others, saw her as a sort of friend. Mia may have taken time to open up to Dr. Conway, but when she did open up they ended up being able to make jokes and talk easier.

If I had to pick another favorite character, it would be Ollie. As one of the other characters stated in one of the books, Ollie just made everyone feel good about themselves. He had no hate for anyone, he never judged anyone harshly, and he never made anyone feel little about themselves. He may have been different when taking his medication, but he still knew how to control himself for the most part. But where I really love his character is when he speaks about Mia. Even when he wasn’t himself, he was able to showcase the love he had for Mia. One of my favorite things he says about his love for her is, “you don’t get it, Mia is the sea,” after being told that there are other fish in the sea.

My favorite character arc though has to be Mia’s, especially in the first book. She overcomes all of her demons, first with the love from Ollie, and then from her own strengths within. She learned how to love herself and believe in herself to be who she is at the end of the series, and I loved that. The demons she had to overcome in the first place are something that I don’t know if I’d ever be able to overcome, but the fact that she was able to is admirable for a character. I applaud Nicole Fiorina for being to creat such dynamic characters, along with major twists in the story that involved their mental illnesses.

Ollie’s views of the world is something I enjoyed reading throughout the series, he has a very intelligent mind. He loves to talk about different lifetimes and how love works. I also enjoyed being able to read his poetry at the beginning of every chapter, since that seems to be an important part of Ollie’s character.

The only thing I would change is the amount of issues that occur in the books. It was a little repetitive in regards to things tearing them apart and having to fight harder for each other. I felt like they let things go that shouldn’t have been let go, even if they did love each other as much as they said. I believe in the love they shared, but I also believe that people should be held accountable for their mistakes, which is something neither of them had to do throughout the book.

There are trigger warnings that I recommend readers take note of before reading the series, but aside from that I’d recommend this to adult romance readers. Ollie and Mia may be sweet here and there, but they have a very spicy intimate relationship that I wouldn’t recommend anyone under 18 read. If you’re into darker, psycho type romance, I’d definitely suggest reading this series. Their relationship goes through many hurdles, so if you can take reading through three books of hurdles, this is the series for you.