Awesome premise, mediocre execution. I had hoped for more character development, more carefully drawn parallels between Emmy and Josh and the difficult life choices they avoided or were forced to make about love. It's a short read, with the entire plot revolving around a wedding, counting down from 72 hours, however, the pacing doesn't reflect that. It's slow and rambling where one would expect it to be quick, suspenseful, and crunched for time.

A bit boring and the characters never really seemed to develop even as their expreience developed in the book. This is one of those books you pick up when you can't find anything else to grab at the moment.

I am so happy I gave this book a longer try than I thought I was going to during the opening pages. I normally don’t like books written in the present tense, and the opening scene is the main character making a crucial decision in “real time.” The book had received such good reviews, though, I stuck with it (and also the narrator on the audio is very good). I am happy I did so because although the narrator in the book is at least 15 years younger than I am, some of the questions she ponders about life and love hit very close to home. An excellent summer read.

Liked other books from this author better. This one was pretty boring. Don’t bother!!

This novel had an interesting premise. Emmy called off her engagement a few years ago and has been hiding out in Rhode Island since then. Now she's back in town for her brother Josh's wedding, but he's insistent on going to see a mysterious woman before he gets married. Both siblings are self-sufficient, but they're also a bit spoiled and selfish at the same time. I enjoyed the dynamic between the two characters.

As for the novel itself, it's told in five parts with unnumbered chapters (and I don't know why that bothered me so much). I found myself having to reread some sections because there were a few things that stood out to me that didn't make sense.

I enjoyed this story, though it didn't have the light-hearted, humorous tone I was expecting it to have. This was a rather serious and somewhat sad story about getting stuck in your life and not knowing how to move forward. I enjoyed hanging out with the characters the author created in this novel, I especially enjoyed the sibling relationship. I always wanted a big brother and this novel reminded me of that. I really like Laura Dave's writing, I'll look for her again.

This was Laura Dave's first book & I really liked it. Her characters are complicated & deep, but relatable. Very good book. Quick read.

An interesting and entertaining exploration of complicated relationships and difficulties moving on. The parallels between the sibling's romantic lives was a great way to spark Emmy's understanding of her own situation. Endings often make me sad, and I did shed tears when some doors were shut for good, but I was left hopeful for both Emmy and her brother.

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I like books that have mysterious titles, the source of which become revealed during the course of reading them and London is the Best City in America does just this. I won't reveal the reference here - that would be telling and spoiling it for you although it is about one of our main characters, Emmy.

Laura Dave's novel is an exploration of relationships but focuses really on those of Emmy and Josh; sister and brother respectively. The book starts with Emmy leaving her fiancé in a motel room in Rhode Island and then deals with the present day situation of Josh, who is about to get married to Meryl, his long time girlfriend. Emmy has been living a life where she has not needed to confront her decision to leave Matt, and chose to stay away from Scarsdale, her home town. Josh is a successful doctor but surprises Emmy with a secret shortly before his wedding and involves her in his trying to resolve it. What Josh reveals to her makes her question her view of her brother but by extension, a lot of other stuff which she thought she knew. Also, around is Josh's best friend, Berringer with whom Emmy has an attraction and one that is returned.

I really liked this book. The characters that Dave creates in Emmy and Josh are likeable and believable and you get a real sense of the difficulty that Josh is having in deciding which way he wants his life to go. Emmy is drifting and Dave shows how a life can be constructed by someone to conceal and also shield themselves from issues in life that they really need to confront, but either don't know how to or haven't come to that realisation just yet; the realisation that there are other choices available to them but they need to be open to them and also brave enough to face them.

There is gentle humour throughout and I liked the way that Emmy and Berringer are drawn to each other but also, that this was not the main focus of the story. Laura Dave has just crafted a very good book about people, the tangles into which they get themselves just by living and loving and how it is not always easy to see what you can gain from life but you get nothing if you choose to shrink from it.

This review was first published on Reedsy Discovery.

3.5 stars. I liked a lot of this book, but I didn't love how it was put together, the five parts bit or the way everything tied in to an element of a wedding somehow. I also thought that Berringer was a totally unnecessary character whom I didn't understand. What I loved, though, were the complicated sibling moments and the relationships within Emmy's family. That's what kept me reading and engaged. And, ok, Laura Dave writes really great sexual tension.

Audiobook. I enjoyed another book by this author, so thought I’d enjoy this one. It was okay, but it felt incomplete. The plot jumped around, it never really dug deeper than the surface, and at the end, I immediately jumped right into another book, instead of even thinking about the one I had just finished.

There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it, most of the characters seemed nice, but bland. There were no spicy scenes, which I always appreciate, and I don’t even really remember profanity.

Although some interesting twists and insightful brother/sister moments were had, I ended the book being primarily stuck with the question of not understanding the title? The story's events took place in Rhode Island and New York. Several instances of people going to or living in London were mentioned and maybe I mistakenly THOUGHT they were going to London, England?

Unlike Laura Dave's more recent, "The Last Thing He Told Me", it took determination to stick with this one. I'm going to look forward to her NEXT book...