What were your opinions of the rest of the Morgan Matson books?? (If you're in the mood for a really light and fun read, I highly recommend Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins)
I mean I loved them all, but if we were going to break it down.
Amy And Rogers Epic Detour: Definitely my favorite book of hers by far. I loved Amy as a protagonist, thought she displayed excellent growth and was super relatable. Roger was also a great secondary character and their romance was my favorite of any of the four books. Plus the premise was so fun and nostalgic.
Since You’ve Been Gone: Emily was my second favorite protagonist--not really all that relatable to me personally but still super well written and likable. Frank was a solid character as well, although I wish we had gone deeper into his fragile relationship with his parents, and the dynamic with Matt. Plus there were some loose ends with the story that could have been wrapped up a little bit better, but I did think the premise was really clever and interesting. The weakness here, for me, was that Emily/Frank was the only dynamic that was super appealing.
Second Chance Summer: Definitely my least favorite romance, and I felt the premise for why she “ran” in the first place was extremely weak. I didn’t find anything about her all that enticing either, except the relationship she had with her dying father. The father/daughter stuff absolutely wrecked me, especially the scene where they watch the meteor stars together. This just generally, dragged for me a bit.
Unexpected Everything: I didn’t think I was going to like this one, Andie bothered me a lot in the first few pages but I ended up loving it, and her. Clark and Andie are my second favorite relationship Matson has created, and I love that you really got to see one of her protagonists really fall in love and have them BE together in a romantic context for the majority of the book--it was a flip of her usual script. You weren’t waiting for them to get together, they already were, so instead, you were waiting for the other shoe to drop (and boy, did it drop!) I also think the father/daughter storyline was well done in this book and the storyline in general was interesting and pretty much all dynamics were given the right amount of attention. The only thing I didn’t love here was how the relationship between the friend group was written. I loved seeing a healthy group of girls thrive (for most of the novel) but writing a first person account of 4 different friendships is difficult, and it came off super expositional a lot of the time. Like, their relationships were being pushed and forced into the narrative so we could see how close they were. I did enjoy, however, that this wasn’t a total happy ending.
From favorite to least favorite, it goes: Amy And Rogers Epic Detour, Unexpected Everything, Since You’ve Been Gone, Second Chance Summer.
