It was Sloane who yanked Emily out of her shell and made life 100% interesting. But right before what should have been the most epic summer, Sloane just…disappears. All she leaves behind is a to-do list. On it, thirteen Sloane-inspired tasks that Emily would normally never try. But what if they could bring her best friend back? Apple picking at night? Okay, easy enough. Dance until dawn? Sure. Why not? Kiss a stranger? Um...
Emily now has this unexpected summer, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected), to check things off Sloane's list. Who knows what she’ll find?
Basically, this is the same plot as Paper Towns by John Green except with two best friends instead of neighbors. That being said it's a good story that I still found interesting, even the second time around.
Emily is the classic shy girl in high school. She thinks no one notices her and is too anxious to actually talk to anyone so she has no friends. Then one day on one of her super long runs she bumps into Sloane, the classic cool girl who doesn't have to try at all to be the 'it' girl at school. They become best friends until one day at the start of summer Sloane just vanishes - literally. House is empty save for some basic furniture, she doesn't answer her phone and none of the neighbors know anything about it. Naturally, Emily freaks out and later finds that her friend left her a list of 13 things to do while she's 'away'.
Now I don't know about you but giving my friends lists of things to do while I'm gone sounds like a really weird idea. Especially the list Emily got. I understand Sloane wants Emily to conquer her fears (skinny dipping, riding a horse, etc) but it's also kind of mean to make your best friend who has severe social anxiety (totally my opinion! it doesn't actually say that in the book) face her worst fears on her own. I know it all worked out in the end, she made friends and ended up not being so anxious but there was no guarantee that would happen.
Also, Emily's thought process through the whole book is strange. She firmly believes that if she completes this magic list then it will lead her to clues to find Sloane...which it doesn't. Big surprise there. I know the story needed something to go off of in the beginning but it was just weird to read. Eventually, this thought process does go away though so that was an improvement.
Unfortunately, this was about the first 100 pages of the book and it was extremely frustrating to read. I'm not that much of a shy introvert so reading that perspective was difficult for me. Emily is so afraid to do the littlest things, like talking to landscaping guys or accepting a ride from a classmate to the gas station. Eventually, she does break out of her shell and that's where things really started to pick up (thank god).
My favorite character was definitely Dawn (besides Emily's parents of course; they were totally kooky and I loved every minute of it). Sadly, Dawn sorta got written out of the story towards the end for obvious reasons, but it was still disappointing that we didn't get to check in with her more. In the end, I'm glad that everything was resolved - it was a satisfying ending as far as standalones go.
Emily is still DEFINITELY NOT one of my favorite characters. Her annoyance factor was off the charts, always thinking that she's right no matter what the situation (for instance when she continually cuts people off when they're speaking because she KNOWS what they're going to say so she literally just runs away from them...ughhhh) She's very stubborn for a person with such anxiety and as I mentioned earlier, that's VERY frustrating. I'm glad this book isn't a series because I don't think I could read any more from Emily's POV. But, I did like the writing style and I'd be willing to try another Morgan Matson book in the future, hopefully in the same genre.
Overall, this book was slow to start and I couldn't identify with the main character; if I hadn't liked the premise so much I think I would have put it down and not given it a second thought. But the writing was engaging, the side characters were funny and I did like that the author included the running playlists. It was different and cool to actually relate to a major chunk of what the characters were discussing a lot of the time.
3 stars
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