{Review} The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

Posted by Donna
Release Date: April 15th, 2014
Finished Date: December 7th, 2014

Publishers: Headline 
Genre: YA, Contemporary Romance
Source: For Review
Format: Paperback

Pages: 337

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US / The Book Depo

For fans of John Green, Stephanie Perkins and Sarah Ockler, THE GEOGRAPHY OF YOU AND ME is a story for anyone who's ever longed to meet someone special, for anyone who's searched for home and found it where they least expected it.

Owen lives in the basement. Lucy lives on the 24th floor. But when the power goes out in the midst of a New York heatwave, they find themselves together for the first time: stuck in a lift between the 10th and 11th floors. As they await help, they start talking...

The brief time they spend together leaves a mark. And as their lives take them to Edinburgh and San Francisco, to Prague and to Portland they can't shake the memory of the time they shared. Postcards cross the globe when they themselves can't, as Owen and Lucy experience the joy - and pain - of first love.

And as they make their separate journeys in search of home, they discover that sometimes it is a person rather than a place that anchors you most in the world.

The Review: Have you ever finished a book and felt as though not a lot happened during the story? Or have you ever finished a book and feel very underwhelmed by it? Well, that’s how I feel about The Geography of You and Me and, I’m starting to feel as though maybe I’m just not meant to enjoy any of Smith’s work. 

The premise of The Geography of You and Me is very cute. It’s about two teenagers – Lucy and Owen – who live in the same apartment complex but they don’t meet until they find themselves stuck inside an elevator together after the electricity is New York City goes out. After that one meeting, they find themselves drawn to one another but it seems as though fate has other ideas when Lucy moves to Edinburgh and Owen goes on the road, moving from place to place so his father can find work.  But somehow they manage to keep in touch by short and sweet postcards and soon they find they can’t forget about each other at all. 

Like I said the premise of this story is super cute – but that’s probably about it all it has to offer. Lucy’s and Owen’s story forces them to have some form of long distance relationship – if you could call it that – because they’re never really in any kind of relationship. They’re only tied by the postcards they send. They don’t speak on the phone, they very rarely email – due to Owen not liking social media – and when they do finally meet, everything seems to go wrong. Their supposed to have a deep connection with each other but it’s not something we really see right until the very last minute. During the 300+ pages of the story, 200+ pages are just about their normal day to day life and I have to say, I really found the story quite boring just because there is not any real communication between the characters during most part of the story. I was kind of expecting the story to have a swoon-worthy romance and, exciting moments and fantastic quotes with the hope of them getting together, but honestly the whole story was just so flat that it just didn’t work for me. By the end of the story the characters were in a no better place than when they first met each other and, it felt as though I’d read the whole story for nothing – no progress whatsoever.  

I have one more book of Smith’s sitting on my shelf and I will give that a try soon, but if that has the same result as her other books I’ve read, I think it’s time to leave this author behind. But I do hope you enjoy this more than me. 

Thank you to Headline for giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.