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The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith (review)

The absence of her globetrotting parents means that Lucy is used to being on her own and navigating New York City solo. Owen is new to the city, and new to the experience of loneliness following the death of his mother; he and his dad have moved there to make a new start, but Owen isn’t feeling it. When Lucy and Owen end up stuck together in an elevator during a power outage, they bond over witty comments and a shared sense of something between restlessness and loss. When Lucy moves to Scotland and Owen’s father loses his job, they stay in touch the old-fashioned way, through postcards and inside jokes, as each moves on to more or less satisfactory sweethearts that don’t quite measure up to the magic they found in each other during the blackout. The romance is a fluffy bit of froth floating on top of a more substantive exploration of finding one’s literal and figurative place in the world; both Lucy and Owen have to adjust their ideas of home to include new configurations of family and their places therein. While Lucy loves the energy of cities, Owen longs for wide-open natural spaces; while Lucy has to adjust to living with her parents, Owen has to learn what it means to be without one of his. In the end, both come to realize that a sense of belonging is a marriage of the right landscapes and the right people. Readers on the verge of moving on to new territories, emotionally or physically, will find new ways to think about anchors here, or maybe they’ll just indulge in the pleasures of a sweetly predictable love story. KC