Every year, a few families of college roommates get together at a cabin in Utah and have a great time. Maelyn Jones has been secretly in love with Andrew since she was thirteen and seeing him at the cabin, but this year things go a little awry--she ends up making out with his womanizer brother Theo, who everyone has always expected she'd end up with because he and she are the same age. Except it's terrible, and Andrew doesn't even care that it happened, and then Andrew and Theo's parents announce on the last day that they are going to sell the cabin.
On the way to the airport, Mae makes a wish, asking the universe to show her what would make her happy. Then the family gets into a car accident--and Mae wakes up on the plane to Utah again, six days earlier. Yes, she's in a time loop, which rewinds a few times when Mae gets into bizarre death-inducing accidents. However, the time loop aspect of the book mostly resolves by...I dunno, maybe a third of the way through?--as Mae starts to throw caution to the winds and do things like quit her job and tell Andrew that she likes him.
And things go great! Seriously, Hallmark Channel needs to come calling to remake this book, because this book does GREAT at longtime friends to sudden lovers who are having a good time making a snow monkey and things like that. It kind of feels low plot after awhile, but it's really fun and sweet and relaxing to read. Some more drama blows up a bit, but overall this is a sweet, fun romance that REALLY does friends to lovers well. (Though I note that the one sci-fi/magic aspect of it...not so much, it's never explained, if that's a thing you care about.)
I really liked how Andrew and specifically Mae's love confession to him was handled. He's polite, he's kind of taken aback but amenable to the idea. It really reminded me of Augusten's love confession to Christopher in Lust and Wonder, as both dudes react kind of similarly.
Quotes (all Mae unless stated otherwise):
- "Maybe it's not about making the right choices exactly, but making the right choices because you're finally being you." -Benny
- "I mean, of course the entire point of telling him how I felt was so that nothing would stay the same."
- "I told him how I felt, giving him an opening to reciprocate, but he didn't. And ye...there's a strange understanding blooming between us."
- "You've never been for me, Maisie. It never occurred to me that you might be mine." -Andrew
- "Maybe we aren't "together" in a defined sense of the word, but we're already undeniably more."
- "You made out with Theo because you'd decided--without ever even talking to me--that you and I weren't going to happen." -Andrew
- "Even if it never turns into more, you are the only one who makes me that happy, and I am so grateful for it."
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.
Four and a half stars.
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