Book Synopsis: Riya and Abby are: Best friends. Complete opposites. Living on different continents. Currently mad at each other. About to travel around Europe.
Riya moved to Berlin, Germany, with her family for junior year, while Abby stayed behind in their small California town. They thought it would be easy to keep up their friendship—it’s only a year and they’ve been best friends since preschool. But instead, they ended up fighting and not being there for the other. So Riya proposes an epic adventure to fix their friendship. Two weeks, six countries, unimaginable fun. But two small catches:
They haven’t talked in weeks.
They’ve both been keeping secrets.
Can Riya and Abby find their way back to each other among lush countrysides and dazzling cities, or does growing up mean growing apart?
My Review: 4/5 stars. This was a pretty good book. I’m not a history or geography nerd at all, so I didn’t enjoy what the characters were learning about on their trip as much as other people might, but I still liked it. I’ve always wanted to travel to Europe, specifically Ireland, England, or France, so it was fun to read about all the different places and tourist attractions the friends visited. My favorite part was when they went to Scotland because I, like the main characters, am a Harry Potter nerd and know that many parts of the movies were filmed at various castles in Scotland.
I have a lot to say about this book, some pros and cons. I'll start with what I didn't really like, which isn't much, so that I can end this review on a positive note.
First of all, I sometimes found it hard to distinguish between the two main characters because the way they spoke was almost too similar. Usually I could tell just based on what was being said, but I'm a person who loves when characters are unique and fleshed-out. A good way to do this is to give characters small but specific mannerisms in the way they talk that reflect their personality. This story didn't really do that so I often got confused as to who was saying what in the story.
Secondly, I thought that, with the character of Abby, there was a lot of talk about her personality when it was already established what she was like. Specifically her love of history. I felt like I was constantly being reminded "Abby loves history and you need to know that", when it was made known very early on in the story and was shown through her actions throughout the book. It's kind of nit-picky, but it could've saved time by not stating this so much.
That's pretty much the only cons I had. Now onto everything I liked about this book.
I liked how it was centered around a friendship. I've been reading a lot of YA books recently where the main focus was a romance, which I love, but it was nice to have a refresher from that theme. There still was a tiny romance subplot, it was in no way the focus of the story and really didn't add all that much to the plot. The relationship that the book was all about was between the two main characters, Abby and Riya, and how they dealt with growing apart.
On the topic of the romance, however, I liked how the love interest wasn't a stereotypical YA boy. He wasn't even really a love interest. In some YA, the boy's only purpose in the story is for the romance, but this character started out as a main part of the plot from the very beginning and evolved into a love interest. I also loved how he was nerdy and not handsome to everyone around him. He wasn't a jock or bad boy either. He wasn't what you would typically think of as attractive. It shows that you don't have to be drop-dead gorgeous at first sight or super sporty to be cute. You don't see very many nerdy love interests in books, usually it's just the protagonist, so I liked that.
Finally, I loved all the little childhood memories the two friends mentioned throughout the book. It established their relationship further by showing how they were when they were little kids. It also reminded me of things I would do with my friends when I was little. Those childhood moments mentioned were sometimes referenced again later on when something they do reminds them of it, so it wasn't all just throwaway exposition.
This book is perfectly fine for younger readers. It's technically a YA, but there's no bad language and nothing inappropriate for elementary kids. There are a few kisses, but they're all wholesome and fine. Lots of lessons about friendship and growing up can be taken from this book, too, so it has great positive messages.
Comments