My Review:Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.
Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.
A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith's new novel shows that the center of the world isn't necessarily a place. It can be a person, too.
It really is my own fault for reading The Geography of You and Me when I really didn't like the only other book I've read by this author, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. I've seen so many reviews raving about books by this author that I figured not liking one of her books was a total fluke and, so, I read this one. And I feel like the two of these books are nearly identical?! Both books are based upon longing, pining, and unrealistic expectations after the two characters spend less than 24 hours together.
One thing I will state is that the writing is good in this book. That wasn't my problem with the book. My problem is that I felt NOTHING while reading this book -- I didn't care about the narrators -- they seemed whiny, immature and just totally out of touch with reality. And, I was bored. Really, really bored. I base my reviews on the feeling I have when I finish a book and whether I keep thinking about the book when I finish. When I finished this book? I felt nothing but relief. I am sure there are tons of readers out there that will disagree with me and for whom this book will be a favorite. I'm just not one of those.
If you were to draw a map of the two of them, of where they started out and where they would both end up, the lines would be shooting away from each other like magnets spun around on their poles. And it occurred to Owen that there was something deeply flawed about this, that there should be circles or angles or turns, anything that might make it possible for the two lines to meet again. Instead, they were both headed in the exact opposite directions. The map was as good as a door swinging shut. And the geography of the thing -- the geography of them -- was completely and hopelessly wrong.
I've seen a lot of great reviews for this book, but it never really seemed like my thing so I didn't read it. I have a feeling that my thoughts would have been in line with yours.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read anything by this author yet but I have one on my kindle that I need to get to. Although whiney immature characters are so no my style. I do love her covers though!
ReplyDeleteI actually really like this author... BUT this was definitely my least favorite. I had a lot of trouble with it too. :( Sorry you didn't enjoy this one. Whiny and immature I totally agree with!
ReplyDeleteWow! I'm so sad to hear you really didn't like this one. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard mostly good things. Your review definitely makes me think twice. Great review.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting on my review of Jesse's Girl. I agree with you on a lot of what you said. I enjoyed it, but definitely not my fav in the series. And it wasn't about sports, that bugged me.