Sydney meets the love of her life, Ethan, right before the two depart for separate, distant colleges. The two maintain a long-distance relationship, but one drunken night in her senior year of college Sydney makes a huge mistake. Weeks later, she finds out she’s pregnant and Sydney decides to keep the baby, despite the fact that the father (not Ethan!) insists on having no part in raising her baby and that she’s just striking out on her own. This is not only Sydney’s story of becoming a young, single mother, but also the story of Grace, Sydney’s daughter who finds out the man she calls “dad” is not her biological father. It is the story of two generations of women finding themselves and coming to terms with the men in their lives.
This is a short book (the first I read on my Kindle, too!) and I had a really hard time putting it down. In fact, I neglected Insurgent for a couple of days just to finish this one. It is one of those stories that delves more into the interior lives of its characters… as in, you are mostly going to see how Sydney and Grace think/feel about events and relationships rather than actually going through those events with them. I actually liked this, as it sort of resembled the way I analyze things in my own head.
It was also a sweet story about growing up (both as an adolescent and a young adult) and defining yourself, particularly in relation to your parents. Sydney has a very strained relationship with her mother, which she hopes not to repeat with her own daughter and Grace can’t shake the feeling that she is somehow incomplete because she doesn’t know her biological father. Sydney struggles to forgive herself and love herself, despite her mistakes. Grace struggles with feeling out of place within her own family.
If you are looking for a summer read with a little family drama, romance, and a happy ending, then this would definitely fit the bill! But… I think you have to enjoy a story driven by feelings and thoughts rather than plot and dialogue to get into this.
Other Reviews:
Jenn @ The Picky Reader recommends this a funny and sweet summer read!
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