The Geography of You and Me {Book Review}

The Geography of You and Me

“You can't know the answer until you ask the question.”

I am still in awe of how completely amazing the story of Lucy and Owen was. Smith has a beautiful way of telling a story that weaves the words through your soul and up to the sky, leaving you watching the story fly high above you, creating a breathtaking image.

Lucy and Owen meet in an elevator in New York. The elevator suddenly stops, and they are stuck inside the hot and stuffy contraption for about half an hour. When they finally get out, they spend the rest of the night together, a night that is both etched into their minds for the rest of their lives.

How long could a single night really be expected to last? How far could you stretch such a small collection of minutes? He was just a boy on the roof. She was just a girl in an elevator.

Just as the sparks between them are starting to ignite, they are both yanked in completely different directions, Lucy to a completely different country, and Owen to the other side of the U.S. Despite the distance between them and the impossibility of them ever being together again, they can’t stop thinking about each other.

Through fate, a few emails, and quite a few postcards, they find themselves spiraling towards each other again and again. Can they fall in love despite the odds?

This story was so freaking cute. Enter Owen, the shy geeky boy whose father works on the building and lives in the basement, and Lucy, a girl who has dreams of traveling the world with her parents, but is constantly left alone in her apartment with only a fridge stuffed full of postcards to keep her company.

“But there's no such thing as a completely fresh start. Everything new arrives on the heels of something old, and every beginning comes at the cost of an ending.”

One day, they are both taking the elevator when it suddenly lurches to a stop. The lights go out, leaving them alone together in the darkness of the stuffy contraption. The only thing to do while they wait is talk- which they do. When they finally get out of the elevator, Owen goes up with Lucy and they spend the night looking at the stars together on the roof. That night is the beginning of a spark that ignites between the two of them.

“Maybe they were never meant to have more than just one night. After all, not everything can last. Not everything is supposed to mean something.”

I was thinking, yes, yes yes- and then it happened. Lucy’s parents come home off the trip with the news that they are moving. Lucy’s father got a job in Scotland, and they are taking Lucy with them. Meanwhile, Owen’s father loses his job in the apartment and they are forced to leave New York and go on a road trip. What could have been is ended quite abruptly, when they are both thrown to the opposite ends of the world.

But, when you’re falling in love, distance can’t stop your heart from wanting. From hoping.

“If you were to draw a map of the two of them, of where they started out and where they would both end up, the lines would be shooting away from each other like magnets spun around on their poles. And it occurred to Owen that there was something deeply flawed about this, that there should be circles or angels or turns, anything that might make it possible for the two lines to meet again. Instead, they were both headed in the exact opposite directions. The map was as good as a door swinging shut. And the geography of the thing- the geography of them- was completely and hopelessly wrong.”

Somehow, like fate is sending them in each other's directions again and again, they find ways to see each other. Whether it is in person or through a postcard, Lucy and Owen cannot forget each other- and their hearts can’t, either.

“The most basic sort of love: to be worried about the one who was worrying about you.”

I fell in love with their story with every page that I turned. Lucy and Owen’s story is not one that I will soon forget.

“It is what it is..." he murmured, letting the words trail off at the end.

"I hate that expression," Lucy said, a bit more forcefully than intended. "Nothing is what it is. Things are always changing. They can always get better.”