A Review of The Start of Me and You

The Start of Me and You is a book by Emery Lord. Paige's first boyfriend Aaron died about a year ago. With the start of Junior year, she makes a plan to get herself back into the world. Dating again seems ideal, and who better than her long-time crush, Ryan Chase? But when Paige starts talking more to Ryan's cousin Max, will he be the one to pull her out of her slump? Or is that something Paige has to accomplish by herself, with a little help from others along the way?

Lord is rapidly catapulting herself to the top of my list of favourite authors. I loved The Names They Gave Us, and I loved this one.

Max is dismissed by Paige in the narrative as a 'nerd' but if you ask me, Max is the cool one here. He can't fake interest in a party and would rather sneak off to read a book and raises his hands to answer teacher's questions. But Max shouldn't have to modify his behaviour in order to fit into school social groups. I have been Max, bullied for liking things too enthusiastically, and I have been Paige, trying to hide them so I fitted in better. There is nothing cool about playing down your interests so people will like you more. To it's credit, the narrative does imply how ridiculous this attitude is, but it does so in a way that still feels natural from Paige's POV, as a teenager who still, on some level, believes this. And Max wears a Firefly T-shirt at one point, and he and Paige bond over the show. My precious children. Oh, and Max and I also think the exact same way about airplanes. That just being on one can make a nine hour flight 'fly' by because you are literally in the air and it's the coolest thing ever.

Paige in fact, has rather a few nerdy traits herself. She corrects her friends grammar and loves reading. An early chapter when she and Max find themselves debating Jane Austen loudly in class is a gem. In fact, every conversation between them makes it so you can feel their relationship developing. And extra bonus points to Paige having a goal, which she is actively trying to make a reality already, despite still being in high school. She wants to be a scriptwriter, so she reads books on scriptwriting to improve and has a script that she works on. She also is applying to a summer program in New York, for screenwriting.

Supportive female friendships give me life, and writing them seems to be a particular talent of Lord's. It's not just one supportive best friend, either. All three of the girls in Paige's circle come together to help each other in a crisis. It's not just everyone gathering around Paige, either - there's a good few times when she needs to help someone else in her group.

If the blurb didn't give away the fact that Max would be the love interest, I feel like most people would expect Ryan to have the role, based on conventions of the genre. It is still refreshing in YA to see someone not end up with their long time crush, because how often does that happen in real life? Max and Paige have a chemistry which seems to be take them out of the pages of the book from even their earliest conversations, and you can see Paige's feelings start to develop gradually, avoiding instalove. And their third-act misunderstanding actually makes sense, too. She also writes teenagers having positive relationships with parents, with realistic issues, who solve their problems together, as equals.

Lord writes about loss and grief so well that she could actually write the pamphlet on it. At one point, Max says "I was pissed at cancer after my Grandpa died. It was Cancer, with a capital C. Like it was a person who I could punch in the face, if only I could find him." And that's exactly it. I want to take revenge on Stroke. I was raised on good-vs-evil, good guys win stories. But here, I can't pick up a gun or sword and strike it down. It's not a battle I can win, it's just a series of circumstances which were the worst possible chain of events for Stroke. Also, could quite happily take that chapter where Paige's Grandmother has a Stroke, and rip it up. If I never read another chapter about Stroke, I'd be happy.

While Lord's books are romance-orientated YA, they are also a fantastic study of humanity at it's best and a coming-of-age journey, in which her characters really grow and develop. Recommended for anyone with even a passing interest in YA fiction.