Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s, Delacorte Press for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
I first found Kasie West’s books in May of 2020, at the beginnings of the pandemic when I was on 100% lockdown and starting to feel extreme anxiety. I was looking for any sort of outlet for this that I could do indoors, since all of my outdoor outlets were gone, and most of the books I enjoy were not quite lighthearted enough for me to handle. I needed something light but still meaningful, and I came across Kasie’s books through my library’s digital database. I read her entire catalogue (outside of the Pivot Point duology) that year, I read Sunkissed last year when it came out, and when this came up as something to request on NetGalley I knew I needed to try my luck.
This book is about Norah and the summer before her senior year of high school. She is going to be going on a three-week RV road trip with her family and the family of her childhood best friend Skyler (dad’s excluded). The intent is to bond/reconnect, have a bit of a vacation, and then also get Norah to the interview she is having at a tiny gaming college in Seattle that she wants to go to – which she is stressed out about. She has hopes and dreams about this reunion, is fully confident that it will be incredibly magical, and then reality hits. Life keeps throwing speed bumps at her, both literally in the form of RV trouble and figuratively in the form of miscommunications between everyone she cares about.
This book has a HEA/HFN ending, but there were still trials and tribulations throughout the book. Norah had to grow and develop her identity in ways that are so realistic to anyone who is used to watering themselves down or masking, especially at 17. There are real life problems in this book, and while I knew I was going to end up happy, because that is something I have come to find as a comfort with these books, I also knew that Kasie would tug at me before I did. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as I have all of her books, and I couldn’t put it down until I finished it. If you need something that is realistic but still will give you the feel-good feels, just nice YA love, check this book out.