Characters: ★★★★☆
World Building: ★★★★☆
Plot: ★★★★☆
Wordsmithing: ★★★★☆
Summary
Milo stayed in his home town after finishing high school. Same family, same job, same everything, until Layla returns after disappearing five years ago. Layla thought the last thing she wanted in life was end up back in Durnan, and that the last person she’d want to see would be a boy who remind her of all the memories she had from before her mum died. Best friends from childhood, they strike up an easy-not-easy friendship, unsure of what they want from each other, and yet maybe being exactly why they need.
Review BookThis is my first review for Harper Collins NZ! They sent me this book in exchange for an honest review, and here it is! [p.s. Which I knew how to make half-stars because most of these would be 4.5!)
Characters★★★★☆
I loved Layla and Milo. They were so flawed and complicated, yet both were like open books to the reader. Everyone has either known or been a Layla or a Milo in their life. I’ve been both and known both. From Milo’s inability to decide what he wants from life, and so ends up doing nothing and slowly losing the will to continue, to Layla making bad life choices, then good choices, then bad choices and feeling like everything around her keeps falling to pieces, and that it’s somehow her fault.
I loved the way that these two POV characters interacted with the people in their lives, and how those people reacted and acted around them. Milo’s dad who sounds like Manny in the first episode of ‘Black Books’, except instead of swallowing The Little Book of Calm, he’s swallowed The Little Book of Self Help. Layla’s step-mum [not step-mum] who she expects to react in one way and then surprises her by acting like a mother would, with care and love and steel will to see the best for her.
They were all beautifully written, well rounded characters with full archs in this simple, small, yet stunning book.
World Building★★★★☆
I haven’t had to write a world building part for a non-fantasy book yet so bare with me!
The town on Durnan was the world of this story, and I pictured it something like Hamilton mashed up with Stars Hallow. The middle of nowhere, a river, a main street/town square, a few local shops and cafes. Tozer did a great job of setting the scene for this story, and creating that feeling of routine, sameness and normality that Milo was desperate to escape from and that Layla ended up craving. I feel like I could map this place out and paint it for you (if I could paint), it’s so clear in my mind.
Plot★★★★☆
So I thought this was going to be the same old ‘girl next door’ story that we’ve all read or seen a hundred times, but I was pleasantly surprised. Yes there are still aspects of that troupe, but they’re all the parts you want from a YA love story, all the best parts.
*Spoilers ahead!* *Skip to Word-Smithing!*
I liked [and hated] the fact that Milo and Layla don’t actually end up together. No I loved it. The fact that in the end they were brave enough to know what they wanted, and that those things didn’t match right now. That even though they both really cared about each other, and wanted to be together, there were some other things they wanted more. I was terrified that in the final chapter Milo was going to get off the plane and run back to Durnan for her, but I’m so glad he didn’t, that he’s off in London having adventures and seeing something. I’m glad Layla didn’t go with him, that she stayed to find a family and piece her life back together and start to deal with her grief rather than pushing it aside.
I’m all for love and romance, and who knows maybe they’ll meet in the middle [;)] but I loved that this was a book that said “There is more to life than finding love… you have to find yourself first.”
Wordsmithing★★★★☆
Again, the writing was real. I don’t know a better word to describe it. From the ‘under cooked sausage rolls’ at the party in the first chapter, to way you don’t know how to feel when you’re in a long distance relation and you say “I miss you” when you don’t miss them.
There were no sentences that made me step back and go ‘wow that was beautiful’ but neither were there any points in the book where the writing felt like writing or pulled me away from being fully immersed in the story. Sometimes wordsmithing is about prose, but sometimes it’s about the ability to put really solid sentences together and spin a story without anyone feel like it’s being spun. I sat and read this for hours, and only stopped because I had to go to sleep so I could go to work the next day. I finished it in the next sitting, and loved every second of my experience reading it.
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