The Start of Me and You

by Emery Lord

[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...