All about November 9, by Colleen Hoover

The book, with 350 pages, narrates a period of about 6 days. The main couple of this story met on November 9 (the reason for the name of the book) when they were 18 years old. Collen Hoover, the author does not explain anything in the first page, so you're hurled into a conversation, which at first I thought was between the main character and her boyfriend, but as the misterious guy told her he was about to have a baby with a 24-years-old woman, we can figure out that the man was her father.

November 9 was also the day Fallon had been a victim of an accident, an unforgettable night when her father accidentally started a fire in their house, leaving her with scars as a consequence. The scars running from her face to her hips were the reason why she couldn't follow her career as an actress anymore, and also why she had such poor self-esteem.

The conversation with her father was not going well; in fact, Fallon didn't want to be at that restaurant with him. She went to the bathroom to grab some air and thought she noticed a guy staring at her along the way. She was used to wearing long blouses and high collars, but still, she could not mask her face so easily. Back at the table, when the conversation turned to her love life, or rather the lack of it, a guy named Benton James interrupted. He was a writer, and the guy who had been staring at her (the whole night, actually). He suddenly started to pretend he was her boyfriend, to defend her, in some way, from her father's judgment. Bothered by the situation and showing his incredible fatherhood, Fallon's father simply went out of the restaurant.

In the restaurant, Fallon and Benton, a bit surprised by the situation, got to know each other a little better. Benton was invited to have some ice cream, and they decided to eat it in a park. Fallon was saying how she felt about herself (her scars), when Ben bent over her to throw his empty pot into the trash can, and enjoyed the moment to flirt with her. However, she ended up thinking that he was trying to "be nice", to make her feel better by pretending he wanted to flirt with her, "see, this is exactly what I am talking about!". Benton was confused, and when he finally realized it, he felt awful, because it wasn't true. He then described what he thought when he saw her at that restaurant—among other things, her scars made him feel he had a chance with such an astonishing woman.

Fallon wanted to go home, and invited Benton, and I don't know why he accepted, only to invite her to have dinner later on. Anyways, he wanted to choose her clothing, and decided on a sleeveless dress on purpose. She said she would not wear it, and he knew why: "It is no wonder that no one looks at you, and the fault is yours", he said. She was surprised and felt like punching him, but then he explained that she acted like it was rude to look at her, wearing clothes and using her hair to cover the scars. He then put the dress on her and said she looked beautiful —"even more than that", she thought, "he makes me feel beautiful".

Before going out to dinner, they lay on the bed and chatted to get to know each other a bit more, both interested in the person next to them. However, they eventually fell asleep and woke up in a startle, hours later. They had lost their reservation, and Fallon was moving to another city and had to go to the airport. They were hesitant in leaving the house, and in the corridor they couldn't hold the emotion and kissed, like it was the first and last time all at once.

They were almost in the car when Ben suggested that they meet every year, that same date, November 9. Fallon had said to him earlier that day that she should "find herself" before having a relationship, so Benton set rules that, during the year apart, they couldn't talk or see each other on social media, and she agreed somehow. He gave her a ride to the airport, and on the way, he gave her the task of going on a date with at least five guys that year (which she did not do, meeting only one guy). She, then, said he was supposed to write a book about their story.

The time for goodbye arrived, she was going to enter the gate, and Benton barely gave her another kiss, setting off quite rapidly. Fallon was disconcertingly upset by this attitude, but she knew Benton didn't owe her anything. Still, she had her stomach as a rock when Benton appeared again, running and shouting "Don't leave me! Please don't go!". Then, he gave Fallon the kiss she was actually expecting.

The next year, on their next date, Benton was waiting at that same restaurant, where they agreed to meet, though he wasn't even sure if Fallon would really come. She was going to be late, and as she didn't have his number to text him, she (follow me on this one) asked for a employee of the ice cream shop they had gone to, the year before, to go all the way to the restaurant, find Benton, and tell him "Fallon is going to be late, but she is coming".

Now that they knew they could only meet again next year, they even prepared questions for each other. Already at Benton's house, they were talking about the year they had been apart. Benton asked about the boy Fallon went out with. She was supposed to go out with at least five men, because Benton wanted her to have adventures or whatever, but the very first one made her feel insecure and ugly about her scars, because he avoided all of them when he kissed Fallon.

When a girl openned Benton's bedroom door, Fallon was already shirtless. Feeling cheated and embarrassed (even though they weren't together), Fallon found out only later that the girl was Ben's sister in law. The girls ended up talking to each other, and Fallon liked to know a bit more about Benton's life. She also met his brother, who was about to get married, and then the older brother (Benton simply forgot to mention the famility party apparently), who gave Benton a punch in the face out of the blue, and, even more strangely, Benton did nothing about it, telling Fallon it didn't matter.

After the dinner, and a senssion of shameful child-stories that Benton's brothers told Fallon, they went to the beach, enjoying their last minutes together, when Ben decided to make a tattoo, just like that (we would find out only later that his mom had made that same tattoo when she realized she loved his father). He made a music note with the word "poetic" in it, representing the two things Benton's mother loved the most in the world, to remind her of how she felt about the person she loved the most in the world.

Fallon had to be back to her city early, which meant leaving early, but not without being affected by cupid, because she was beginning to get concerned about her feelings towards him, thinking it was getting harder to go away, and that his company, even though they had accumulated just a few hours together, made her feel special, beautiful, secure and eager to be around him.

The next year, Ben had promised to go to New York to visit her, but his brother, the one who had gotten married (and who was now expecting a baby) died in a car accident. He difficult things were for Ben, how he had been talking with so many relatives and pretending to be so put together. When Benton saw her there, after making sure she was real, Fallon had the best reception she could have imagined.

That night, they felt a deeper connection, and hopefully, that was understandable. As described by Fallon, their souls were connected in that moment, which made them understand each other in more than just a physical way. Feeling so absorbed in the moment, Fallon said she wanted to give up on the idea of the book (when they met, she told Ben was supposed to write a book, which was going to be about them and their once-per-year meetings). They made plans for Benton to move to New York and to share telephone numbers to keep in contact.

The only thing they forgot, however, was Benton's brother, who had died and left his family without a father. Fallon figured it was a terrible idea for Benton to move to New York now, so her brilliant solution was to lie to Benton, saying she did not love him the way he did. This left Ben devastated, because he also felt (clearly) a deep connection and cared a lot about Fallon. The end of the day was like that: Fallon inside a taxi, nothing inside Ben's chest, both hearts shattered on the ground.

During this year, Fallon had finally understood her passion was not necessarily to act, but rather to teach others how to do so. She became an acting coach and decided to move back to Los Angeles to start her career brand new, and being with Benton might have influenced her a little as well.

They met at that same restaurant, and after some time chatting, Fallon connected some dots here and there, and realized Ben was now dating his sister in law. This realization left her completely devastaded, and at this point you really don't know if you pity her or not, because now she feels the way Ben did one year ago. However, no matter which one you choose, it was still beyond sad, and felt like cheating, even though it wasn't. She had no right to be mad because that was on her, but knowing that must have made everything worse. She was undisguisedly dilacerated, and he somewhat tried to stop her when she tried to go away, specially after he realized she was now living in LA again, but she ran away from him faster, and told Ben she would not come next year, not even for the book, because she could not do it anymore.

Next year, Fallon actually chose not to go. Her friend, with whom she shared an apartment before, insisted on going to a pub and told her to call a bizarre guy, with whom she was going out. Ben had waited for her almost the entire day, and when he went to Fallon's place, he met her friend's boyfriend, who told Ben where the girls were. Ben went to meet them, and at the party, he pretended to be interviewing Fallon and her friend, who wore a pineapple-print pant.

Then, Ben managed to get some privacy, and they talked. He explained the situation, and after a fight between Ben and the pineapple guy, Fallon went home with him. He reconquered her, and they were sure to be happy this time.

However, Fallon found the book Ben was writing, and she decided to read it. She opened up on their second date, and read about the part when Ben fought with his brother and got punched. In the book, he explained that he was the one who caused the fire that gave her scars, which was the reason his brother was mad.

Now, Fallon is also purely mad, because at first she thought he was "playing" with something too personal for her, and writing something like that about her wasn't nice. But then she realized it was actually true, which might have made things worse. When he woke up and saw her, she was already leaving.

Next year, Ben went to her place, put the entire book at her door, and went away. She was supposed to read it all, but instead she went to sleep. When she woke up, she found her mother, who said she was coming for breakfast the day before, reading the entire book.

Her mom told her she should read, because she owed that to him. She had scars on her face, and he had done everything to make her feel better about them, give her confidence. Ben had scars that people could not see, inside scars, and he had exposed everything to her, so Fallon should treat them the same way he did for her.

She read everything, with long pauses in between. All the explanations she did not want to hear from him on their last date, she read in the book now, and these made Fallon go back to him.

Benton's mother had died, and that was all Fallon knew. She had killed herself, and at the time, Ben's two older brothers had already moved away, so Ben was the one to find her, with a suicide letter, which he did not have the time to read. Wanting to know about her reasons and not having access to the letter, Ben went through her stuff and found out she was going out with a guy: Fallon's father.

Ben got mad and frustrated, so much that he went over to the man's place, observed him, and in a moment of uncontrollable rage, he set the man's house on fire. He had no idea Fallon was there, and he regretted what he did the moment he started the fire. He told what happened to his brother only, because the police concluded it was an accident caused by Fallon's dad.

Ben's brother told him to never mention anything about it, not to talk with those people, and not to search them on the internet. When his brother saw Fallon at his house, presented as Benton's girlfriend, he was unpleasantly surprised. After his mom's death, Ben went through his worst phase. He always went out to drink and barely ever remembered anything the next morning. He had nothing to live for, and his brother was already getting tired of trying to help, but just seeing him fall apart. The day he met Fallon, he had followed her father, as Ben went to the cemetery and saw him putting flowers on his mother's grave. He couldn't help, and while hearing their conversation and realizing how bad her dad treated Fallon, implying that her career as an actress ended the moment she got those scars, and also seeing how insecure she felt about it, as she tried to hide it with her clothes and hair, Ben felt like he had to help someway, and pretended to be her boyfriend.

Fallon read all of that and a bit more about their history from Ben's point of view. That was enough to change her mind about him, to stop seeing him as a monster, and to start believing in him and his love again.

Ben made a letter and put it in the middle of the book, where he thought it was enough for her to read. He wrote he would wait for her at that restaurant, and if she didn't come up, he would understand the message. He waited for her the entire day, but as she read everything with long breaks, she took the entire day to read and digest everything. It was about 23h57, Ben was already entering his car, and she showed up. They talked, cleared everything between them and finally could fall in love without worries.