For some reason I thought this was a memoir about learning to drive, so it took some time to adjust my expectations and understanding. Still, nothing much happens so I had space to do that; it’s pretty much another long story about appreciating nature and taking a moment to breathe, thinking back on one’s childhood, and the degeneration of modern society into hustle and bustle and social isolation.

Has Audrey Rose always been this dense? Because for an allegedly very clever heroine, she fails to pick up on a lot of pretty obvious clues. I really don’t know what she’d do without Thomas — although she’s the narrator, he’s the one who really carries the narrative with his charm and occasional displays of emotion. (The one place she really contributes is their banter, which at least was still delightful.) Though the setting is old-fashioned, his particular brand of chivalry is very modern: respectful, built on equality rather than benevolent sexism.

I was also hoping we wouldn’t be subjected to an actual love triangle, as I started the book thinking how relatively rare it is for a YA pairing to become an established couple more than halfway through the series, and was disappointed. Mephistopheles never really grew on me, as a character or as a love interest, nor did many of the other characters; I know his whole deal was the mystery and social isolation, but the distance persists even as Audrey Rose gets a better idea of who he is.

The plot was alright, though again I found myself less invested than I hoped. Even the historical references in this installment are not as strong as in previous books, considering just how much creative license was taken (and acknowledged in the author’s note). It was an alright read, but pretty forgettable.

I knew going in that this wasn’t my usual “type” of book, so all things considered it wasn’t half bad. There was a lot of telling rather than showing and some moralizing, but I genuinely cared what happened to Merete and I didn’t actively dislike Carl even though he’s inarguably a jerk. Assad is kind of a caricature, but not one I found especially offensive (though objectively it’s not for me to say, of course), and he was portrayed as intelligent and hardworking. There’s also some ableist language, which I don’t want to dismiss as a product of the setting but which isn’t huge either.

I didn’t guess the culprit, but it definitely makes sense and I probably could’ve figured it out if I’d tried. The ending was very neat, but considering how dark this book gets in certain parts, it balances out alright.

I tend to be wary of first-person POV, especially from relatively privileged high schoolers (even knowing they’ll undergo major character development), but this one restores my faith in the stylistic choice — Tom is a good person to start with, just understandably uneducated about certain issues and influenced by his own biases and the prejudices of his family and friends.

The cast actually is pretty homogenous — it can be subdivided pretty neatly into the middle class Catholics in Enniston, the Somali Muslims, and the rich jerks from Maquoit, then Myla kind of stands alone, matching her narrative role — but they represent a diverse set of views and experiences, which is just as effective and important to see. Enniston as a setting is definitely more backdrop than major draw, which works; this story is more about the people who live there.

Some loose threads are left which could contribute to the themes, but as it stands I think the ending strikes a good balance between closure and realistic ambiguity.

Definitely engaging and unique, but a little too quirky and short for my taste; I felt detached from a lot of the narratives, though it was easier than expected to relate to (or at the very least empathize with) the protagonists. Short stories in general seem to be growing on me.

I have a lot of opinions about this book, but in part due to the Principle of Charity (possibly the most important thing I have learned all semester) and in part because I’ve already spent much longer than I wanted to on this book, I’ll keep this brief. While I agreed with multiple points hooks made — particularly in the first two and last two chapters — I disagreed with a lot of the middle, exacerbated by her simplified and binary presentation: love ethic vs greed/abuse/corruption, traumatic childhoods keep us from losing our fear of love, true love exists but takes work and isn’t a guaranteed HEA, basically love cures all and would save the world if we would just let it.

Maybe I just have too-high expectations of Rainbow Rowell after falling in love with Fangirl, but this was just a disappointment from start to finish. The characters seemed shallow rather than complex (I honestly couldn’t tell Jennifer and Beth apart for most of the book), the emails/messages(?) more lifelike than the main narrative, the settings flat, the actual writing rather stream-of-consciousness. In other words, it’s most of what I don’t like about the romance genre. (Also, the title doesn’t really make sense and I was mildly appalled by the casual ableist jokes.)

I wanted to put 2.5 stars, but as I wrote this review I found it hard to talk myself into it.

There's nothing dramatically wrong with this book, per se; mostly I just felt like it wasn't enough — I didn't feel anything for any of it. Too much telling instead of showing (particularly disappointing since I'm sure Prague is gorgeous and bursting with life and culture; I also found it difficult to follow the POV characters' thought process at times), barely-distinguished characters (halfway through, I was still getting the three mains mixed up), drama for the sake of drama (it really just felt like Megan in particular was just making life hard for herself, and Hope to some extent too), and the twists were either too predictable or didn't make logical sense.

Also, I didn't realize when I picked this up that it was chick-lit romance. For fans of that genre, it's probably a great read, but for me it lacked substance. The endgame is finding your other half, romantically of course, and the female friendship I was looking forward to was upstaged.

On the bright side, I've now completed my 2018 POPSUGAR reading challenge!