I See London, I See France

by Sarah Mlynowski

Saskia Maarleveld (Narrator)

"Nineteen-year-old Sydney has the perfect summer mapped out. She's spending the next four and a half weeks traveling through Europe with her childhood best friend Leela. Their plans include Eiffel Tower selfies, eating cocco gelato, and making out with 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 hot friend, monitoring her mother's spiraling mental health via texts, or feeling like the rope in a friendship tug of war."--Book jacket.

• ISBN10: 1538417634
• ISBN13: 9781538417638
• Publish Date: 11 July 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperFestival
• Format: Audiobook (CD)
• Duration: 9 hours and 29 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

If you a looking of a cheap way to visit Europe, look no further than I See London, I See France. This light and breezy read follows besties, Leela and Sydney, as they embark on a backpacking trip across Europe, and I found myself quite entertained.

I really enjoyed Mlynowski's peek at each country. Some I had visited and some I had not, but I thought she did a great job highlighting some of features of each city the girls visited. I must say, my favorite part of each visit, were the food descriptions. I found myself lusting for these edibles and actually quite hungry.

This book has a pretty fun cast of characters. As the girls travel, they meet up with friends, old and new, and they let loose in that way that 19-year olds on their own do. One of my favorite chapters was when the gang was all together in France. It was fun seeing all the characters come interacting together. And seriously, I was totally won over by Jackson. He surprised me in a good way, and I hope that he will pop up on the second book.

There are more substantial things in the book as well. Throughout the book, Sydney is dealing with her guilt from leaving her little sister to care for her agoraphobic mother. For the most part, I was really happy with what Mlyonwski did with this plot point. Another thing explored was how a friendship changes. Leela and Sydney went to different colleges, in different countries, and this trip marks the first time in a year that they had spent an appreciable time together. They have those growing pains that you would expect, and it is explored to some extent. But these are two examples of things I wished Mlynowski would have explored more.

Speaking of the second book, I am really intrigued on where this is going. At the very end of this book, there is a little blurb, which implies that it will involve characters that were mentioned in this book, but not in this book. I do want to read their story, but I sort of hope to catch up with these characters too. Either way, I am pretty sure I will check out book 2, because this was overall a fun read, and I liked I said, I am interested to see what happens next.

Overall: A fun NA romp through Europe infused with a little bit of drama and a lot of laughs.

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[Cocktails and Books]

Cute story. Characters were just a little too immature for me (Leela...holy smokes!!). I would have liked to have know what happened with Jackson and Sydney, but overall you get what you get out of it (College student on the loose in Europe).

[Leah]

I wanted to love this, and in some ways I did. The mental health aspect with Sydney's mom was probably my favourite part, and it seemed very well written, but everything else? UGH. It's not that this was a bad book, I just couldn't get on with the fact that Leela was a pretty awful friend to Sydney. If you make your best friend come with you on a European adventure, because your boyfriend dumped you, perhaps DON'T go running as soon as he comes calling? Because he's on the same trip? It was all Leela, Leela, Leela, and Sydney didn't get a look in and it irritated me big time. With friends like Leela who needs enemies, eh? Not to mention the bizarro spat between Leela and Kat (instigated by Leela) because Sydney made a friend at college. HOW BLOODY WELL DARE SHE, EH? Selfish mare. She should have just sat & pined for Leela, who goes to college in Montreal.

Otherwise, the book was okay. I liked all the different destinations (although, next time please be aware that the word snog in England means french kissing, not just regular kissing) and not everyone in England eats fish & chips. And the French don't all smoke. It was kinda cliche, how every country literally had every cliche spouted whilst they were in it.

I wanted a girl's backpacking trip through Europe, not a bloody drama with boys unworthy of either girl. Well, Matt didn't deserve Leela, but I loved Jackson. You can write a book without romance, though! Sydney did not have to kiss a boy in every city, for God's sake. This would have been so much fun if it was just Sydney, Leela & Kat discovering Europe's hidden gems. But it was ruined by boys, as per usual.

And the ending. It appears there will be a sequel (actually it seems like it'll be a companion, set at camp?) but I mean TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED. Did Sydney's mom cope while her daughter was away? Were there any after-effects? What about Sydney's own anxiety that came and went at will and was just left.... with no answers? The ending was just so open, I just came up on this page that said "the end" and I'm like "The hell?"

I actually didn't like this book as much as I thought I did. WHO KNEW.