Summary: “What’s worse than getting dumped? Not even knowing if you’ve been dumped. Joy got no goodbye, and certainly no explanation when Zan – the love of her life and the only good thing about stifling, backward Haven, Utah – unceremoniously and unexpectedly left for college a year early. Joy needs closure almost as much as she needs Zan, so she heads for California, and Zan, riding shotgun beside Zan’s former-best-friend Noah.”
What I liked: I really like all of the characters in this book. They all had their own personality and characteristics that set them apart from each other. My favorite character was Noah, who is Zan’s best friend. Joy can’t stand him because she thinks that he is a follower of all his friends, but I don’t see him that way. A lot of the people at the school are a lot alike but it’s because they all have the same religion. So it’s odd that Joy thinks they all just want to be alike, because they have to be. Throughout the story you see how sweet, honest and caring Noah really is and I found myself wishing that I had a friend like him. Also, Joy has a lot of great friends. She has friends back in California where she moved from and new friends in Haven. All of her friends really care about her and want whats best for her, but I’m not sure that she notices it at first. I also liked how real Joy’s situation was. She was very relatable in the sense that no matter what her friends said to her, she ignored them because she needed to experience it for herself and find out for herself how things would turn out, even when she had a good idea how it would turn out.
What I didn’t like: This book was an easy read, but kind of predictable. I didn’t have to force myself to keep reading but I didn’t feel like it was an overly exciting book. Another thing that I didn’t like was how un-supportive and not understanding her friends were about Joy wanting to go find Zan. It really bothered me that they would never let her talk about him and hurt for him, but then later on, my perspective changed when I found out that’s ALL she ever wanted to do.
I recommend this book to those who love a good love story. It’s full of love and heart and honesty.
