I love Laura Dave, but this isn't a favorite for me. I loved "Eight Hundred Grapes" and "The Last Thing He Told Me" and even really liked "The First Husband" but this one fell just a tad short for me. It was entertaining, but I felt the plot got lost quite a bit in MC's internal discussion and development. There were several parts of this book that I was asking myself if anything was going to happen. Overall, it's a good story even if I did skim the last 40 or so pages, which, ironically is when the plot picked up. Unfortunately, I was bored by then. A solid 2.5 stars upgraded to 3, I guess.

The book was okay but not something that I'm going to remember for long. Basically complicated relationships where the currents are running deep and not all is as it seems as both the brother and sister try to find their paths forward.

NOTE: Something that I want to remember ... quotes from the book.
"
1. You have to choose what your life is going to look like.
2. Stuck … The part where you need to choose among the choices that are there, and not the ones that aren’t anymore. At least not how you need them to be. You’re stuck on some imaginary idea you have of how it would have been. You need to think about how it is now. And how you want it to be.
3. I had no idea how far my life had gotten from any life I wanted for myself.
"

I didn't like this book. Too dull, too hard to finish.

"London Is the Best City in America" failed to engage me on any level. The characters were underdeveloped and despite a cloying repetition of "great truths" about love and relationships and "moving on" I never managed to find the "A Ha" moment with any character's life choices. The couples that got together were completely predictable and the Rhode Island references seemed random and bizarre. I felt the urge to play the teacher handing back a report with the words "What happened to these characters? What purpose to they play in the plot development?" and "Cheesy dialogue--please rework". Not a satisfying read, unfortunately.

I really liked the life lessons that the book displayed, and how Emmy and her brother were going through similar situations. I also liked the ending a lot, because they both were able to overcome their fears and do what they were dreading for a long time. I wish some parts of the plot were a bit more specific, like what Meryl and her parents talked about after the almost wedding, Emmy and Berringer’s relationship, and Josh’s reaction to their relationship. I figured that this was something he would be upset about, but since he was already dealing with leaving his fiancé the author decided not to touch on this. I also thought the whole idea of Emmy’s video tapes was kinda weird, but I guess everyone copes differently. Overall, the book was definitely not my favorite genre to read, but had good life lessons about moving on in life. I would give it 3-3.25 stars.

Typical Chick Lit - was just okay. Couldn't get behind the main charecter so I had a hard time with it. Was a book club book and was a hung jury - some loved, some didn't. I was rather ambivilant. You will read it and forget about it instantly.

This was a great book and a super easy read. I even cried a little towards the end.

This was a light, breezy, easy read, which was good because I've been reading an awful lot of books about the end of the world lately!

I loved the main character, Emmy. She was someone I'd want to hang out with in real life. When I started the book, she was frozen, lost in the past of an ended relationship. As the story progressed, she began to thaw out a bit, finding herself.

I wrongly assumed that this was about london for some weird reason. fyi it isn't for any potential readers out there.
I liked it- it is well written and enjoyable. It's about this girl that decides not to marry her fiance and then struggles to find out who she is. When her brother is getting married a few years later she is able to help him from the things that she has learned.

At first I thought it was kinda depressing but as I got into it I liked it a lot more.

I can’t say it enough....Laura Dave books are like my book crush. I can’t even help it. After reading just one of her books, I scavenged all the rest and have enjoyed reading every single one of them. These are simple, easy reads, but they always leave me feeling hopeful.

In “London is the Best City in America”, Emmy, a twenty something is grappling with trying to make sense of her life after she walks out on her fiancé. She is living in a small town in MA and working in a bait and tackle shop. Emmy is trying to write a documentary about how the wives of fisherman feel and survive. Meanwhile, she has to go home to NY for her brother, Josh’s, wedding. Emmy is shocked when she realizes that her brother is ambivalent about getting married, and even more shocked when he asks her to drive him to MA to see “the other woman” a day prior to the wedding.

Through this tale of sibling love and rivalry, wedding stress, learning to be true to oneself, and coming to grips with who we are and what we want in life, both Emmy and Josh learn quite a bit about themselves, and learn that sometimes decisions cannot be made for you.

It was ok. Expected more

I am generally wary of chick lit, especially novels of 30-something women finding themselves. It is a matter of age, I suspect, because few of these novels resonate with me any more and most feel very formulaic. But this is the 3rd novel of Dave's I've read, and like Lianne Moriarity, Dave has a way of moving beyond the formula to ask the big questions in ways that I find compelling and engaging. Emmy, the narrator of London, is struggling to understand herself and her relationships (mostly an engagement she chose to end), but also grappling with the ways in which her family, and her responses to them, have shaped not just the choices she makes, but in her inability to make active choices. As she watches her brother grapple with his own lack of choosing on the eve of a wedding he seems to have drifted into, Emmy directly confronts the ways in which drifting along is also a choice. Dave has crafted a novel of growing up in which the characters do have to each confront their own limitations and the endings are complex beginnings rather than neatly wrapped packages.