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Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary



‘It’s not the changes that will break your heart; it’s that tug of familiarity.’

 This book had quite an impact on me.  It was not just a nice little love story, but also dealt with a range of other topics.  At a time of great vulnerability and change in both of their lives, Hadley and Oliver’s meeting is life-changing.  There is no doubt that there would be a completely different story to tell if Hadley had made her plane on time; I love this “sliding doors” concept.

I figured that the main theme of the book would be Hadley and Oliver’s blossoming relationship, but this wasn’t the case.  Though there was a lot of fun in reading the teenagers’ interactions on the plane, the story quickly progressed from this.  Much of the book is about Hadley coming to terms with her father’s impending wedding to a woman she doesn’t want to like, and I felt that issues of family and parent-child relationships were just as dominant a theme.  I haven’t read a book before that tackles the divorce issue quite in this manner, and I thought it was done exceptionally well.  With the help of Oliver’s advice, Hadley is able to work through her emotions over her father leaving, and I was very moved by the results.

There’s always a gap between the burn and the sting of it, the pain and the realization.

For such a short book, this story offers a lot to the reader.  Other than the surprise of Oliver’s reasons for returning to England, the plot was relatively predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless.  I would say it is a commendable thing to be made to feel so invested in a character’s life in the space of so few pages – I was hooked from the beginning, and my only criticism is that there wasn’t more to the story.

Has anyone else read this book?  What were your thoughts?