Title: I See London, I See France
Author: Sarah Mlynowski
Publication date: July 11 2017
Publisher: HarperTeen
Number of pages: 378
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary Romance
Goodreads synopsis:
Nineteen-year-old Sydney has the perfect summer mapped out. She’s spending the next four and half weeks traveling through Europe with her childhood best friend, Leela. Their plans include Eiffel-Tower selfies, eating cocco gelato, and making out with très hot strangers. Her plans do not include Leela’s cheating ex-boyfriend showing up on the flight to London, falling for the cheating ex-boyfriend’s très hot friend, monitoring her mother’s spiraling mental health via texts, or feeling like the rope in a friendship tug-of-war.
As Sydney zigzags through Amsterdam, Switzerland, Italy, and France, she must learn when to hold on, when to keep moving, and when to jump into the Riviera…wearing only her polka-dot underpants.
I adored this book to pieces. I got hooked right from the start! The snappy dialogue paired with the ridiculous shenanigans that can only come when you’re young and traveling on a budget set the perfect tone for a fun fictional romp across Europe.
I appreciate the way the friendship between Leela and Sydney was written. It was accurate to real life friendship—sometimes the other person makes you cringe, but you have to love them anyway. The character dynamic between them was frustrating at times, but I could relate it back to my own real life relationships, which made it all the more real for me.
But I think it was Sydney herself that made me love the book so much. Her struggle with her mother’s mental illness gave her dimensions, putting the emotional sacrifice of the trip in perspective. I connected with her a lot because I’m also a planner (and center my life around my dramatic friends). Her roundness as a character impressed me, as it’s been awhile since I’ve read a YA novel about a teenage girl who doesn’t make me want to throw up when she takes selfies with her best friend.
The romance between Sydney and Jackson was well written. It was hot yet emotionally heavy enough toward the end that I felt anxious not knowing how the book would be tied up. There are bits in the novel that are a little too cookie cutter, but it was such a fun read it had me wanting to throw a bag together and catch the next flight to Europe.
