The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord

Title: The Start of Me and You

Author: Emery Lord

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Release Date: March 31, 2015

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

Following her pitch-perfect debut Open Road Summer, Emery Lord pens another gorgeous story of best friends, new love, & second chances.

It’s been a year since it happened—when Paige Hancock’s first boyfriend died in an accident. After shutting out the world for a year, Paige is finally ready for a second chance at high school…and she has a plan. First: Get her old crush, Ryan Chase, to date her—the perfect way to convince everyone she’s back to normal. Next: Join a club—simple, it’s high school after all. But when Ryan’s sweet, nerdy cousin, Max, moves to town and recruits Paige for the Quiz Bowl team (of all things!) her perfect plan is thrown for a serious loop. Will Paige be able to face her fears and finally open herself up to the life she was meant to live?

Brimming with heartfelt relationships and authentic high-school dynamics The Start of Me and You proves that it’s never too late for second chances.

Emery Lord wrote one of my favourite books of 2014. As a result, I couldn’t possibly been more excited about her new book, The Start of Me and You. So much so that I’ve already read the book twice and it still isn’t out for another few days. But that’s the kind of book The Start of Me and You is, a book you can reread over and over again, and each time it gets even better.

For the past years, Paige Hancock has been dealing with her grief, trying to move one from being the girl whose boyfriend died in a freak drowning accident. But it hasn’t been easy. Everywhere she goes, people give her That Look. The look that tells Paige people feel pity for her. And she hates. With the start of a new school year, Paige decides that it’s time for her to start living her life again. So she makes a plan and it should all be simple enough. Find a way to go out with Ryan Chase, the guy she’s been crushing on since the sixth grade, join a club, make new friends. It’s all simple enough. But then Ryan’s cousin Max transfers back to their school and Paige’s plan starts to go off track. But in deviating from her plan, Paige just might start living more than she thought she would, and learn all about second chances.

Open Road Summer was one of my favourites of 2014. I just couldn’t say enough good things about it, and it left me absolutely desperate for more from Emery Lord. And then I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy of The Start of Me and You. As much as I wanted to wait until closer to the release date, I couldn’t help myself and pretty much read it right away. And I ADORED it. And then this past week I read it AGAIN. And loved it even more. That’s just the kind of story Emery Lord wrote, one you can read over and over again and never get tired of it. If anything, it will get even better every time. And that’s just because the story itself is absolutely beautiful and perfect. And there’s so much to love in this story. Yes there’s romance, but that’s not really the point of this story. When I was reading it felt like The Start of Me and You was so much more about the friendship than it was about the romance. It was about the longtime friendship between Paige and her girlfriends. It was about her new friendships with Ryan and Max. And to some extent it was about her friendship with the members of her family. And I absolutely LOVED that about the book. I loved seeing all the friendships grow and develop. And I loved how it led to the best and most satisfying slow burn romance I’ve read in a long time. The romance between the characters didn’t come as a surprise, not in the least. That was the point. But I still loved seeing it all happen.

I can’t even begin to explain how much I loved Paige. Right from page one, she was someone I wanted to be friends with. If I’m being completely honest, I would love nothing more than to become part of her group of friends so I could hang out with Morgan, Tessa and Kayleigh. Those girls’ friendship is a friendship I would love to have. But Paige was also her own person outside of her friends, even if she struggled with figuring out who exactly that was. And I loved seeing her figure it out. Especially with Max along for the ride. And Max was just perfect. Well, he wasn’t actually, but that’s what really made him perfect. But in all seriousness, Max was the nerdy guy of my dreams. As much as I love reading about bad boys or athletes or broody guys, the nerdy ones are my favourites. And I have made it my goal to find myself a real, live Max. Apart from my love of him, I loved seeing the relationship grow and evolve between Paige and Max. Seeing them go from being friends while Paige still thinks she wants to be with someone else. And then seeing them come to the realization that they were becoming more than friends. All of it just warmed my heart and the adorableness was almost too much to handle at times. Just read the book, you’ll understand what I mean.

With The Start of Me and You, Emery Lord has easily become one of my favourite authors and one whose books I will automatically buy. Just do yourself a favour and buy a copy of the book because you’ll just fall in love with this story. And if you need some more convincing, I’ll leave you with this quote from the book. It’s perfectly describes how I felt rereading The Start of Me and You.