Unique, Thought-provoking Debut Novel

What a delightful debut novel. This young author explores what, to an old woman like me, seems fairly unique to this generation- having so many choices they often stay paralysed and make none, while life goes on its unintentional path. Unique situation, interesting characters and dilemmas as well as conclusion. I won’t say more for fear of spoilers but I’m glad I read this and look forward to Laura Dave’s next endeavour.

Kinda like Shiva Baby but more boring and also now that I think about it not like Shiva Baby at all

This was a fun read but nothing other than chick lit. The reader knows that the protagonist will end up with her older brother's long-time best friend on literally page six. Characters are pretty trite but still, a good beach read.

Such an original idea. Woman dumps guy due to poor communication, moves away, thinks about him for 3 years non stop, returns home, bumps into him randomly, initially wants him again, then decides she doesn't because of a sign from the universe, then realizes she's had a crush on her brother's best friend.
I'm only giving 2 stars because the author forgot to include a family member that died for some reason or is insanely wealthy.

First of all, spoiler alert: This book does NOT take place in London. Paris actually comes up more in the main character's memories than London does. However, it refers to a childhood memory of Emme's, who chose London as the city she most wanted to visit when her parents asked her at 9 years old where in the U.S. she'd like to go. They explained that London wasn't in the U.S. and took her to Hershey, PA, instead, where she complained the entire time that it wasn't London. I think this was supposed to be a parable teaching her that once you make a decision, you can then choose to enjoy/like/have a good time with that decision or to be miserable with it.

The decision in question is whether to get married/stay in a relationship or not. Emme, her brother Josh, and their friend Beringer are all faced with this decision as Josh's impending wedding approaches, which throws all of them into pressurized situations in which they need to finally DECIDE.

The impending wedding was a good storytelling device through which to explore the questions that the author asks: How do you know? Is there someone better out there? What if you make the wrong decision? Should you take someone back? How do you know if you can believe someone who's hurt you but is now repentant? How do you move forward? How do you figure out what you want, what you need? Who's good for you?

You may also enjoy the actual settings of the book, Scarsdale, NY, and Naragansett, RI, as well. A nice summer read. Enjoy!

Ni la he entendido del todo ni la he disfrutado apenas. La única buena noticia es que se lee en un par de sentadas, pero en todo momento me ha parecido que los personajes actuaban como marcianos.

I feel bad giving this such a low rating because I really like this author, but this was boring.

I wanted so badly to like this book more. Only one thing resonated. “You’re still stuck on some imaginary idea you have of how it could have been. You need to think about how it is now. And how you want it to be.”
May we all focus on how we want things to be.

I was looking for a light read and got suckered in by the RI connection, but this book was about as well-written as Sweet Valley High.

I kept reading this book expecting it to get better. It had potential to be better. Felt it was rather predictable and was slow moving. It tried to be deeper, but stayed rather superficial instead.

3.5 rated up.

A favorite part of this book was when the main character was wearing an I love mount airy lodge t shirt and her mother told her to get rid of it because no one really loved mt airy lodge

reading this book was like watching a romantic comedy. the novel is entertaining, sure, and i found that i really wanted to finish it, but it isn't actually good. most of the chapters felt more self-contained than i would have liked, almost as though they were blog posts that had been strung together to form a novel.