Through break-ups, make-ups, and dating other people, each year's class trip brings the pair back together and forces them to confront their undeniable connection. From the science museum to Six Flags; New York City to London, Lulu learns one thing is for sure: love is the biggest trip of all. (Pub Date: May 05, 2020)
Following an interesting format, we get to learn the love story between Lulu and Alex since the day they met at the beginning of high school until the last field trip during their senior year.
3.5 rounded up to 4 because of so many extra elements present.
The two main characters are very cute, no one can say they don't believe in their feelings. But I do think the story format didn't help the plot. Thinking of this format separately, it was a nice idea. The book is divided in four parts for each year they're in high school together on the day of the field trip, May 7th. Additionally, we also get flashbacks of what happened during said year. In other words, we skip a year each part and we get the new status quo, then we go back little by little to recap why this or that changed from the previous year.
I enjoyed seeing how their characters changed, especially Alex. And, of course, I would feel curious about those points of change, how they got from the previous part to that. This was all well executed and demand a lot of control on the writer's part, but Miranda Kenneally is experienced enough for that. The thing was that the goings and comings of a love relationship became too shallow because of the format. Until we got the whole story, we already knew the result. It's basically starting the book from the ending, which would have demanded much more mysteries and twists to entertain me.
Also, Lulu wasn't a character I enjoyed. She's a little on the obnoxious side and all the conflicts didn't improve her enough by the end, though I did get used to her by part two at least. So it's not like I hated her, but I didn't love her either. Also, maybe, they got together too soon? We simply know Alex is head over heels with her and the issues they had felt real but not so interesting. Because of that, I was super excited in the beginning but maybe it lost steam too soon. The last part was also cute at least, but the middle section not that much. The story didn't drag, it's super quick to read, in fact. It was just this feeling that it began as much more.
In all, the format is different so it's always welcome especially in the YA genre, even if it didn't benefit the plot as much as it could. The couple is cute and Alex is a good boy, which is a real plus. We also have good lessons of following your dreams, they both are passionate about what they do and it's great, also of what a good relationship is. There are many great points to this book as you can see, and I recommend it to fans of romance YA's.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 4 out of 5.
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