Hello, Goodbye, and Everything In Between

by Jennifer E. Smith

Summary From GoodReads

On the night before they leave for college, Clare and Aidan only have one thing left to do: figure out whether they should stay together or break up. Over the course of twelve hours, they'll retrace the steps of their relationship, trying to find something in their past that might help them decide what their future should be. The night will lead them to friends and family, familiar landmarks and unexpected places, hard truths and surprising revelations. But as the clock winds down and morning approaches, so does their inevitable goodbye. The question is, will it be goodbye for now or goodbye forever?

This new must-read novel from Jennifer E. Smith, author of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, explores the difficult choices that must be made when life and love lead in different directions.

Thoughts on the Book

Yet another BEA pick.  I grabbed this book at the same time as The Thing About Jellyfish, I really wanted to read this one, I was in the mood for a good romance after the let down of City Love.

My Review

This book is about Clare and Aidan.  Clare wants to break up because they're going to opposite coasts for college, Aidan doesn't because he thinks they can survive the long distance thing.  The book takes place in their last night at home, Clare tries to convince Aidan to break up.

I don't like Clare, she's the stereotypical control freak girl who always gets exactly what she wants, no matter what anyone else thinks.  There was nothing redeeming about her in the story.  It starts with her making up her mind to break up with Aidan because it's the easiest thing to do.  She wants their relationship to remain perfect, they end it with a bittersweet goodbye before moving on with their lives rather than dealing with feelings and getting caught up in emotions and having it either fizzle out or explode in a horrible break up.  Because, clearly these are the only options for a long distant relationship.

Aidan, however, is much more normal.  He plans for things that he can plan for, but goes with the flow for other things, like his relationship with Clare.  He thinks that they should stay together for the simple reason that he loves her, and cannot imagine being without her, even if it's just being with her via talking and texting over the phone.

There are two other side characters that show up periodically throughout the night, Stella and Scotty.  They are Clare and Aidan's respective best friends.  Stella is about to leave for college as well, and Scotty is staying behind for community college.  They're both fun characters who are going through their own difficult goodbyes before the semester begins.

Now, I'm actually going to go a little into spoiler territory because it was the major issue I had with the book (aside from Clare). So I'm giving my rating before the end of the review so you can avoid accidentally reading the spoilers.

I give this a 7/10.  I mostly enjoyed it, three of the four characters were great.  Clare and the prologue at the end were what really bothered me with it.



***SPOILERS***

I liked that Aidan stuck with the decision to remain broken up after Clare finally admitted how she felt about him.  I like how they agreed on 'later' rather than be together or be apart.  I did not like how Clare decided that there can be absolutely no contact for three months.  How is that fair to Aidan?  It was easier for her, so that's all that mattered.  Then by Thanksgiving they were dating other people? What was that?  They needed to be with someone so badly that they dated some poor guy/girl while they were pining over someone else because being alone was too horrible?  Not to mention Aidan's dramatic kiss when he sees her again before the two of them were like, oh yeah, I have a boyfriend/girlfriend.  Way to treat your And their "later" was pretty crappy too.  Wow, 9 months.  I wish after Thanksgiving they weren't dating other people, but were able to become friends.  Then have the bowling ball thing happen into their senior year after they've actually had life experiences and seriously dated other people (or not, if they always felt like it was cheating), before coming back together.  It seemed more like they decided to get back together just before summer break so they could be together then.  It was almost a really great ending, but it just fell short.