“I fell hard for this story of love, loss, friendship, and bad airport food. I loved it!” —Morgan Matson, New York Times bestselling author of The Unexpected Everything
Over the course of one chaotic night stranded at the Denver airport, Ryn confronts her shattered past thanks to the charm of romance, the uniqueness of strangers, and the magic of ordinary places in this “laugh-out-loud funny, deeply stirring” (Julie Buxbaum, New York Times bestselling author of Tell Me Three Things) novel from the author of Boys of Summer.
Ryn has one unread text message on her phone. And it’s been there for almost a year.
She hasn’t tried to read it. She can’t. She won’t. Because that one message is the last thing her best friend ever said to her before she died.
But as Ryn finds herself trapped in the Denver International Airport on New Year’s Eve thanks to a never-ending blizzard on the one-year anniversary of her best friend’s death, fate literally runs into her.
And his name is Xander.
When the two accidentally swap phones, Ryn and Xander are thrust into the chaos of an unforgettable all-night adventure, filled with charming and mysterious strangers, a secret New Year’s Eve bash, and a possible Illuminati conspiracy hidden within the Denver airport. But as the bizarre night continues, all Ryn can think about is that one unread text message. It follows her wherever she goes, because Ryn can’t get her brilliantly wild and free-spirited best friend out of her head.
Ryn can’t move on.
But tonight, for the first time ever, she’s trying. And maybe that’s a start.
As moving as it is funny, The Chaos of Standing Still is a heartwarming story about the earth-shattering challenges life throws at us—and the unexpected strangers who help us along the way.
I always look forward to Jessica Brody books, and this one did not disappoint. Ryn really has some things to work through. Her best friend, Lottie, died in a car accident almost exactly a year ago, and Ryn is having a hard time coming to terms with it because she knows she should have been in the car with Lottie when it happened, but thanks to some food poisoning, she wasn't. Ryn doesn't know how to grieve her best friend, which ends up making her seem a little crazy. She copes the best way she can, and that's by carrying on conversations with Lottie in her head and constantly googling questions on her phone.
There is a lot going on in the book. It takes place in 24 hours, which I always find fun to read. Ryn is stuck in the Denver airport thanks to a blizzard. There's an illuminati conspiracy storyline, there's the obvious dead best friend storyline and all that that entails with flashbacks of therapy sessions and moments with Lottie There's the Xander storyline, and then there's the Denver employee's who Ryn becomes friends with storyline. There's a LOT going on, but I never felt too overwhelmed with it. I think it helped break up the crazy grief-stricken storyline and made the book a little more fun.
