Book Synopsis:
Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?
Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row.
A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?
Quirks of timing play out in this romantic and cinematic novel about family connections, second chances, and first loves. Set over a twenty-four-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it.
My Review:
4/5 stars. I've read three Jennifer E. Smith books so far, and all of them have been kind of mid-tier. I think this one was my favorite, though. The characters had cute banter and good chemistry, and I like the family themes throughout. The romance was pretty unrealistic, thought, and the writing style was weird to me.
The first Jennifer E. Smith book I read, This is What Happy Looks Like, I remember being pretty insta-love. With this book, however, that was the entire point. The characters were supposed to fall in love "at first sight." That part made it a fairly unrealistic romance. There wasn't time for them to develop. By the end of the book, they were talking to and about each other as if they had known each other for months, not just one day. However, despite that, the characters still had a great dynamic.
A big issue I had right away was with the writing style. It was in present tense, but also third person - a combo that doesn't usually work. Present tense is fine, but it works much better in the first-person perspective. It didn't work in this book. There were a lot of sentences that seemed almost like past tense or were just generally very clunky.
One thing this book did pretty well was writing about emotions. The author was able to describe how a character felt without outright saying it, and she described nuanced facial expressions that conveyed a lot. There were some great passages whenever the main character was describing something emotional or meaningful.
I like when books are about books, or have books and reading as an important element. This book included that a little bit, which was nice. Reading books was a way that the main character and her dad bonded, and there were meaningful sentences underlined in a book her dad gave to her.
Content:
Language: d*mn, a*se, God's name taken in vain
Sexual Content: A few kisses are described, cheating/affairs are mentioned - the main character's parents got divorced because of an affair, and another character talks about his dad having multiple affairs all the time.
Violence/Gore: None
Drugs/Alcohol: None
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