The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E Smith - review

The book opens with the starting pinpoint of an extended metaphor in relation to darkness embodying the incapability of both characters to dissect and determine their emotions for one another in that starting moment. Lucy Patterson and Owen are stuck in an elevator – or rather a lift as we call it – in an uptown, New York apartment building, inches away from each other but several worlds apart in character and mind. The two are stuck due to a citywide blackout and are brought closer as the minutes tick by into hours whilst trying to help each other survive the blistering heat of the New York summer. The night they spend together on the roof leaves a permanent indent in both Lucy and Owen whilst Jennifer E Smith adds that hint of frustration by dashing them with a spell of teenage hysteria.

This plays back and forth throughout the novel as both of them wonder whether the other reciprocates their feelings and if their starry night meant the same to the other. It helped understand where exactly these two where coming from as individuals and not as Lucy and Owen (in the elevator). The novel focuses on their quest to try and close the emotional distance between them whilst battling against seas of increasing physical distance.

Smith portrayed Lucy outside the common stereotypes of a 16-year-old girl with wealthy parents living in New York, aside the ever-present theme of the rich parents rarely paying attention to their children. Yet even this is further disputed later in the novel as more is revealed about Lucy. Alongside Owen she contrasts him from head to toe whilst he searches for permanency and a figurative future plan. Lucy revelled in the idea of travelling outside the conventional ideas cultivated by tourism industries. Something not so permanent. Mainly because she had been placed in a box of permanence all her life regulating on the island of Manhattan, while he had lost what made him feel like he belonged anywhere prompting his desperate search to find it once again.

Smith allows you to follow their stories separately in small divided chapters broken up with each one contrasting the other. These grew shorter as the novel progressed and caused me to feel a little frustrated at the haphazard structure. Until I realized it gathered the idea of how their worlds were so different especially when apart by personifying and elongating their physical distance whilst subtly presenting a decrease in emotional distance.

But as the novel progresses past that flustered, teenage hormone-fuelled first meeting, Smith shows how this distance no longer means anything. Instead it strengthened their bond and without knowing much about each other they found solace and comfort in the other.

You want to 'ship' them but there's no point because she's already done it for you. You vie for their togetherness and are eager to explore how they overcome the hurdles developed by their changing locations. Their addresses changed frequently but their feelings for each other never swapped zip codes. And it's in this that Jennifer E Smith shows how, despite all the courses of nature being placed in their way whilst they try to figure themselves out, that night under the stars still meant more than a grand Parisian cathedral or a cold, crispy night in Chicago to Lucy and Owen.

She even manages to retain the normal teenage elements of being heartbroken but not quite sure how to fix it or deal with it. And encountering people who change your perspectives but not quite in the same way as that first ever person. And always having that first ever one floating like a piece of unwanted debris at the back of your mind yet not ever really wanting to let them go.

For the older part of the YA spectrum it could bring back nostalgic moments and for the younger end it will plant a seed of longing to discover how two people who are so different in every way end up appearing not that much different at all. The determination line between Lucy and Owen doesn't necessarily blur but it edges in that direction. Having not ventured into any prior books by Jennifer E Smith, I'm unaware of how she presents her other characters in the past two similar plot-based novels. However, I'll allow myself to be biased and say this is her best one yet because you couldn't love these two any more.

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