The Start of Me and You

by Emery Lord

Paige Hancock starts junior year with a list of ways to take back her life, rather than spending another year as "The Girl Whose Boyfriend Drowned," and finding out that Ryan Chase, her long-term crush, is available again might be the key.

• ISBN10: 1619639386
• ISBN13: 9781619639386
• Publish Date: 1 March 2016 (first published 31 March 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children's Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 416
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Paige had spent the past year in hiding. Hiding from being "the Girl Whose Boyfriend Drowned". Though, she did mourn the loss of him, she mourned not really getting to know him even more. She felt the outpouring of compassion and the looks of pity were unearned. However, after a year, she was ready to begin again. She had a plan, but, as she found, sometimes the best things are not part of the original plan.

Paige's situation was so complicated, and Lord did an incredible job helping me understand all the mixed up emotions she was dealing with. It was easy to understand Paige's motivations, desires, and ambivalence, which also made it easy to root for her. Watching Paige expand her social circle, join a team, and embark on new experiences was so gratifying for me. Slowly, but surely, Paige reclaimed her place in the world, and I was proud of her.

Lord gifted Paige with an interesting and wonderful family. She had an incredible grandmother, who she was slowly losing to Alzheimer's. My love and adoration for her grandmother ran deep, and I was happy she was part of Paige's story. I also found her family dynamic very interesting. Her divorced parents sort of dropped on bombshell on her, but their honesty when discussing the situation was something that definitely propelled Paige in the right direction.

This was a will-they-ever type of romance, but well worth it. I adored watching these two dance around each other, and though I kept wanting to physically push them together, I was happy enough to see them develop a strong friendship, which they eventually recognized was more, and you know I am chomping at the bit to continue their story in the sequel.

Overall: As if I didn't already adore Emery Lord, this book solidified why she is one of my contemporary queens. The characters, the family focus, the adorable romance, the fierce friendships, and all the feels were everything I wanted and needed and couldn't get enough of.

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[Kelly]

In the small town of Oakhurst Indiana, Paige Hancock is defined by her relationship with Aaron Rosenthal and the memory of the young, vibrant man. Paige is an intelligent young woman and aspiring screen writer, encouraged by her family and friends to create new memories once more. Paige's sorrow was portrayed wonderfully and meticulously with compassion as she bravely begins to immerse herself in new experiences, reprising her infatuation with athlete Ryan Chase and participating in extracurricular activities.

Captain of the interschool quiz challenge and science fiction aficionado, Max Watson is a compassionate and endearing young man, his tentative friendship with Paige, captivating. Although suggesting a whirlwind romance, the essence of The Start of Me and You is friendship. Paige has a remarkable company of friends, creating a wonderful dynamic between characters. I also appreciated the inclusion of the Hancock family, a reoccurring theme in Emery Lord novels while so many young adult authors neglect parental influence.

Emery Lord is a prolific contemporary young adult author, creating charismatic characters with compassion and endearment.

[girlinthepages]

This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[Bianca]

Knowing what happens is different from knowing how it happens. And the getting there is the best part.

[whisperingchapters]

*reaches the last page* *flips it and sees acknowledgements* WHAT?! But... No.. I want more. I want more Max and Paige. Is there a second book? I know there isn't but I desperately need one after the magic that this book was. The friendship of all four girls was brilliant! Max and Paige's friendship was FUN and just magical and I NEED MORE.

[jnikkir]

This review can also be found at my blog, There were books involved...

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So, I was really excited for The Start of Me and You. I loved Open Road Summer a ridiculous amount -- it was a fantastic debut, unique, filled with chemistry and feels... I adored it. And I wanted that from The Start of Me and You, too. Unfortunately... I didn't feel it with this one.

Admittedly, this book does have a lot going for it, and I really did like a lot about it. It's light and sweet -- it might read a tad young (or maybe just overly cute/cliche?) in places, but it covers a lot of really important themes.

The main character, Paige, has been deeply affected by the death of her boyfriend, even though they'd only been dating a couple months. Paige's feelings seem to be focused more on the shock of losing someone close to her, and losing that unknown potential they had... But she's still the recipient of a whole lot of sympathy from people who didn't even know her, which is awkward; and she often feels like her grief is unwarranted compared to what others have lost. I thought this was a really important theme, because it can be applied not only to Paige's grief, but to any emotion. Perspective is important, yes; but if you feel something strongly, your feelings don't need to be compared to others' to be deemed valid or not. I thought The Start of Me and You did a great job of emphasizing this.

Another thing this book did well was its friendships. The Start of Me and You portrays a group of friends in a way that I haven't seen very often, but it's a portrayal that's needed. Paige has a really solid, wonderful group of girlfriends, who fight and make up, and weather the good and the bad together. They support Paige while she deals with not only the death of her boyfriend, but other family issues that arise over the course of the book. I really liked seeing this, because it's not often that you see a larger group of best friends like that, who are well-developed and prominent and truly important to the story.

However... despite these good things, The Start of Me and You was, overall, sort of disappointing for me. While there's really nothing I can point at and say "this wasn't done well", I think a lot of the book fell flat for me because I had a hard time connecting emotionally with the story and characters. I felt really distanced from everything, and was never able to become truly emotionally invested.

This detachment stemmed from a couple of things, I think. First, despite the hard topics, a lot of the book was super cute and fun, but I also felt like there was a lot that was... a little cliche? Overly... I don't know, perky? I don't know how to describe it exactly... It was just a little too cute, or a little bit corny sometimes. A lot of the emotions didn't seem to have much weight to them, to me, so I never became terribly invested.

I also had some issues with the romance... I really liked the love interest. However, The Start of Me and You really (really really) takes its time building the friendship between the two before anything happens, and then BAM! It's over. So, the good: This is absolutely not a case of insta-love, and builds their friendship in an incredibly realistic way. But... there's no real payoff or time for growth after they realize their feelings for each other. I mean, I guess the book is called The Start of Me and You, but still. I really could've done with things moving a bit quicker, so we could see more of them together, and Paige's emotional arc when she was finally in another relationship.

 
In conclusion...

Yes, this book was good. It was a lot lighter than I was expecting a book dealing with grief to be. I liked Paige's girlfriends a lot, and I liked how her unique situation was handled. But... emotionally, I didn't get invested in the story, or the characters, or, really, the romance -- which is what I really wanted from The Start of Me and You. A sweet romance. There are sweet friendships, definitely, and there were some romancey feels at the end, but... yeah. Overall, I just wanted more.

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There were books involved...

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

I don't have the words right now, because ALL THE FEELS are wrecking my emotions in the best possible way. This book is gorgeous and brave and full of so many wonderful things. Paige is such a fantastic character and I really enjoyed her story. There were so many times when I wanted to just hug the stuffings out of her and others where I wanted to yell just stop being afraid and take that leap already.

Full review coming soon.

[Amber]

Rating: 3.5.

Judith was kind enough to lend me her ARC of The Start of Me and You last year in an attempt to ruin my life like she did with Open Road Summer. Thankfully for me, it didn’t work out quite so well, although I was more prepared this time around so that might have had something to do with my lack of tears.

The Start of Me and You wasn’t as brilliant as Open Road Summer, and the reason for this is that it didn’t have that epic friendship that Lord’s previous book had. It was a lot more boy-focussed, in my opinion, which was fine, except I was hoping for something more. Of course, Paige had her own group of friends, but none of them could beat the bond between Reagan and Dee. Maybe I shouldn’t be comparing the two books, but I feel like I have to to explain exactly what this book was missing.

As with Open Road Summer, I wasn’t a giant fan of the love interest in this novel. Paige, in an attempt to find herself after two years of being branded as The Girl Whose Boyfriend Died, tries out various new things, including the Quiz Bowl team. Through this team, and also through a guy called Ryan who she has had a giant crush on for ages, she meets Max, the nerdy love interest.

Max was okay. Just okay. There were times when I really liked him, and other times in which he pushed Paige way too hard and didn’t seem very apologetic for it afterwards. For example, Paige has a fear of water for certain reasons, and Max goes and pushes her into a pool. AND THEN GETS MAD AT HER FOR BEING MAD AT HIM. *seethes*

I did, however, appreciate that Lord didn’t go with the asshat initial love interest route with Ryan. Because that cliché is overdone and I am so over it. Ryan was lovely, he just wasn’t the right guy for Paige.

What really pulled at my heartstrings was the relationship between Paige and her grandmother, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. I was always closer with my own grandparents growing up, and this relationship between Paige and her grandmother really got to me. I cried. A lot.

Despite my complaints, I really enjoyed The Start of Me and You, and I will probably be rereading it in the summer when I marathon it back-to-back with Open Road Summer. At least, I hope that will happen. These things tend to get away from me.