Review: The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

Title: The Geography of You and Me
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Publisher: Poppy
Paperback, 337 Pages
Published April 2014
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Summary: Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father. Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.

This was another book that I picked up at The Strand after going to BookCon back in May, and it was a book that has been on my TBR list for the longest time. (You know, just one of those books that you never get around to reading because of the continuous growth of your TBR pile? That's what this book was.)

Anyway, I was really into The Distance Between Us and This Is What Happy Looks Like, so I was super excited to see this book on the shelf, and I added it to the mountainous pile of books I bought that day. And I'm glad I did!

This was such a cute book and I liked it! Lucy and Owen met in a stuck elevator in New York City (aka my home and my favorite place in the whole entire world) during a seaboard-wide power outage. Despite being almost complete strangers, they hit it off right away, and, both alone with no company for the rest of the night, they spend the night exploring the city and sitting on the roof watching the stars - something not very possible to do in New York on average nights. But when the sun comes up, their friendship/potential romance dissipates, and their lives go back to normal. Even if they wanted to make things work, some problems arise - one being that Lucy is on her way to move across the ocean. Another being that Owen and his dad are being kicked out of the building.

So yeah, making romance work is a bit of a struggle.

This book switches between the third-person perspectives of Lucy and Owen, each worlds away but somehow managing to think of one another constantly, no matter where their situations in life take them. They even manage to meet up once, in California...but with the way that goes down, it just raises the question that neither of them are willing to confront: can they make long distance work?

This book was a sweet read. Lucy reminds me of me, with her bookworm tendencies and loner mannerisms. I sympathized with her because of the fact that her family was never truly all in one place, but I also envied her because she got to live a life where her parents moved her all over the world - like in New York, London, and even Scotland.

Owen, on the other hand, I liked but still wanted to give him a smack upside the head. Seriously, he had no idea how to act around Lucy. And the fact that he kept wanting to bounce around the country without telling Lucy how he really felt about her was so frustrating. I kept chanting for him to grow a pair and tell her! 

Watching the romance between Lucy and Owen unfold throughout the entire story was interesting and very feels-invoking. Also just getting insight on what it was like for Lucy to live in several different countries (And Owen being able to travel across the entire United States of America) helped me envision new experiences that I personally haven't had. And as Lucy mentions in the book, I'd love to experience them all in person, because reading about them just isn't the same!

All in all, The Geography of You and Me was a nice contemporary read about long distance relationships and the reality of them - they aren't impossible, but they also aren't easy - and they definitely aren't for the faint of heart. This read was sweet and kept me smiling and feeling bubbly inside, so if you're looking for a nice, easy YA romance, I would definitely pick up this one!

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