Review: The Geography of You and Me

The Geography of You and Me
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

Publication Date:  April 15th 2014  

 

 

 

 

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For fans of John Green, Stephanie Perkins and Sarah Ockler, THE GEOGRAPHY OF YOU AND ME is a story for anyone who's ever longed to meet someone special, for anyone who's searched for home and found it where they least expected it.

Owen lives in the basement. Lucy lives on the 24th floor. But when the power goes out in the midst of a New York heatwave, they find themselves together for the first time: stuck in a lift between the 10th and 11th floors. As they await help, they start talking...

The brief time they spend together leaves a mark. And as their lives take them to Edinburgh and San Francisco, to Prague and to Portland they can't shake the memory of the time they shared. Postcards cross the globe when they themselves can't, as Owen and Lucy experience the joy - and pain - of first love.

And as they make their separate journeys in search of home, they discover that sometimes it is a person rather than a place that anchors you most in the world.

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In The Geography of You and Me,  for the first time ever Jennifer E Smith has made me dislike her characters. Or I should say, some of the choices they make.  It's also a different style than I was expecting, maybe more like the previous This is What Happy Looks Like,  which it wasn't, and it was so much better for it

The Geography of You and Me is different in a way that, in This is What Happy Looks Like, we had the emails between Ellie and Graham, whereas in here Lucy and Owen aren't so commutative, it's a more read between the lines kind of thing, which made it refreshing and a little more angsty than ever before, and not a repeat.

Jennifer E Smith's novels are the ones I go to when I need something I know will be good, that feel good feeling you get, because they're exactly how you want in a light, fun read that aren't full of unrealistic drama, and run like a film. However with The Geography of You and Me, I felt it had a lot more depth to the characters and the situations they're in.

Lucy, with her parents that are almost never home, leaving her alone and Owen, <spoiler>whose mother hadn't  very long died. Both, knowing what alone feels like, no matter what their class or standing. So, no wonder they're drawn together, and being stuck in an elevator together didn't end so badly.  They share a night together through the blackout, getting to know each other, a night neither can forget, even when they move on to the next place they go.

New lives, new faces, new places, and that's where their communication breaks, because both are scared to get attached- to see if that what they felt that blackout night was real, if that's all they'd ever have, because they're afraid that's all there could be, that that connection they felt was still there. If it was really ever there.

Lucy's a character you can really relate to, she loves her City, but she feels trapped inside the apartment on her own while her parents' are flying of f to one place and another, sending her postcards, that are kind of like a slap in a face. She wants to travel, to see places, to feel like she's not alone, she wants to be Somewhere. Everywhere.

Owen himself, wants what she wants, a place, a somewhere, while he's trying to keep what's left of his family together, while his father finds himself work, they move from once place to the next, staying long enough and then moving onto the next. He's also kind of a coward in places, he really was his own worst enemy sometimes. But, I couldn't help but not love him, the perfect character because he is flawed, he's realistic and he's searching for life, to feel alive.

With The Geography of You and Me, Jennifer E Smith has once again given us characters to care about, to root for, to be annoyed with but can't help smiling over. Real characters that could be anyone of us, as they go through the motions of their circumstances. While they go searching for themselves and each other.

~An advance readers copy was provided by Headline in exchange for an honest review~

Rating: 5/5