Release Date: Aug. 27, 2013
Publisher: Amulet Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Pages: 336
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound
Description: Goodreads
For as long as she can remember, Wren Gray’s goal has been to please her parents. But as high school graduation nears, so does an uncomfortable realization: Pleasing her parents once overlapped with pleasing herself, but now... not so much. Wren needs to honor her own desires, but how can she if she doesn’t even know what they are?
Charlie Parker, on the other hand, is painfully aware of his heart’s desire. A gentle boy with a troubled past, Charlie has loved Wren since the day he first saw her. But a girl like Wren would never fall for a guy like Charlie—at least not the sort of guy Charlie believes himself to be.
And yet certain things are written in the stars. And in the summer after high school, Wren and Charlie’s souls will collide. But souls are complicated, as are the bodies that house them...
Sexy, romantic, and oh-so-true to life, this is an unforgettable look at first love from one of young adult fiction’s greatest writers.
Sometimes, you wake up before it's even fully light outside,
and your stupid nose is running from a stupid summer cold, and you can't get
back to sleep even though it's 6 am on a Saturday (SATURDAY!). If you're
a book lover like me (which, clearly you are because you're here reading this
review!), you make the best of a bad situation and scan your shelves.
Turns out, my morning needed a Myracle. It's been a hot minute
since I read a book in just one sitting, but The Infinite Moment of Us was just what I needed. It's not
perfect, but it certainly made up for the morning’s dreary start.
The
misunderstood-bad-boy-admiring-the-girl-far-above-his-presumed-status is not a
new trope in the slightest, but it seems I will never get enough of it. The misunderstood bad boy here is Charlie
Parker, and he has red hair and the same name as an awesome jazz musician so
you know I already love him. The girl he
admires from afar is Wren Gray, who is of course misunderstood in her own
right. They share a charged moment on
one of the last days of senior year and a chance meeting in a hospital, but it
isn’t until the graduation party where they share more than charged moments that
last for the rest of the summer. They’re
on a deadline, though, because Wren’s either going to Emory like her parents
have decided or she’s going to Guatemala with Project Unity like she’s
decided. Or, is there a magic third
option that might keep our lovers together?
There’s a lot to like in this book, but if I’m being honest,
my favorite relationship wasn’t Wren and Charlie, but Wren and Tessa. I love to see a real, supportive friendship
written in an honest way. They didn’t
always agree, but that didn’t take away from the fact that they wanted the best
for one another. As for Wren and
Charlie, while they did make some teenage decisions that didn’t sit well with
me as a not-teenager, I did very much enjoy their chemistry and their open
discussion about having sex. Note to
teens—words are sexy; use them.
Myracle’s honest style of writing complemented their relationship
perfectly. She lays it all out there—the
good and the bad—and it keeps those pages turning.
As I kept reading and the conclusion wasn’t becoming
obvious, I started to get nervous. The
big “event” through to the ending left much to be desired in my opinion. For spoiler reasons, I won’t go into what the
big event is, but I felt it was overdramatic and overdone. Alternately, the ending felt too chaotic and
rushed. After spending so much time with
Wren and Charlie, I felt that each of their separate family resolutions
deserved more time than they got. The
literal ending is also ambiguous, but I have less of a problem with that. It’s the build-up (or, in some cases, lack
thereof) that disappointed me.
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Wow that sounds lovely. I definitely want to read this book even more now. Great review!
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