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364 pages, Hardcover
First published July 14, 2020
The Written Review
New week, New BookTube Video - all about the best (and worst) literary couples
Unless you've been under a rock for the last four years, everyone knows Rowan and Neil hate each other.![]()
There is so much I love about Judaism, the history and the food and the sound of the prayers, but it isolates me, too. Yet here’s someone I labeled as an enemy who was maybe feeling isolated in the same way.
Opposites attract is my favorite trope, so it made sense to start there. Because, of course, the thing about opposites: they always have a lot more in common than they think.Rowan Roth has a lot of things happening on her last day of high school. Will she be named valedictorian, or will that honor go to her arch rival and nemesis, Neil McNair? There’s the Howl, a game for the graduating Seniors that’s one part Senior Tag and one part scavenger hunt around Seattle. She also has plans to go to a book signing for her favorite author, a romance novelist who has inspired Rowan to write her own romance novel. And she’s feeling nostalgic about leaving Seattle for college, worried about whether her friendships will survive, and scared that her parents won’t approve of her plans to try for a career as a romance novelist.
“There’s this word in Japanese: tsundoku,” Neil says suddenly. “It’s my favorite word in any language.”
“What does it mean?”
He grins. “It means acquiring more books than you could ever realistically read.”
“While I love romance, I’ve never believed in the concept of soul mates, which has always seemed a little like men’s rights activism: not a real thing. Love isn’t immediate or automatic; it takes effort and time and patience.
The truth of it was that I’d probably never have the kind of luck with love the women who live in fictional seaside towns do. But sometimes I get this strange feeling, an ache not for something I miss, but for something I’ve never known.”
“Boy bands, fan fiction, soap operas, reality TV, most shows and movies with female main characters . . . We’re still so rarely front and center, even rarer when you consider race and sexuality, and then when we do get something that’s just for us, we’re made to feel bad for liking it. We can’t win.”
. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ❦ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .
“There’s this word in Japanese: tsundoku,” Neil says suddenly.
“It’s my favorite word in any language.”
“What does it mean?”
He grins. “It means acquiring more books than you could ever
realistically read.”
Audio book source: Libby
Story Rating: 4 stars
Narrators: Rebekkah Ross
Narration Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Contemporary (YA)
Length: 9h 15m