The Distance from A to Z by Natalie Blitt

As well as this romance there is also a great friendship between Abby and her roommate and all the complications of family and their impact on the characters’ lives.Īs Abby spends most of her time reading, learning and speaking French, there is no shortage of it in the book. It’s the perfect mix of a cute, simple, young love story and a deep connecting friendship. I really liked the relationship between Zeke and Abby. The tone of the book retains its youth while also gaining some sophistication from being removed from a cliquey high school environment. The setting is at a college, but Abby and Zeke are high school students at a summer program. This feels like a new adult crossed with a young adult novel. They are as different as A and Z, but there is a connection between them to which Abby is inexplicably drawn. Cute baseball loving, complicated, hiding something Zeke. Part of her summer course requirement is talking with her class partner Zeke in French.

So sick she’s moving several states over for a summer away from everything baseball to take a French language course. And I mean actually crazy, team paraphernalia, bumper stickers, car window flags crazy and all. It’s a light, easy young adult romance that leaves you with a sense of great importance.Ībby’s family are crazy about baseball. Yes, this book is about a girl and a boy falling in love and about little things like baseball, and summer courses and the French language, but it manages to make these things into so much more than the sum of its parts. But I was wrong, totally wrong to doubt because the comparison works so well. When The Distance Between A To Z was compared to Stephanie Perkins and Miranda Kenneally I have to admit to being skeptical. As Abby begins to suspect that Zeke is hiding something, she has to decide if bridging the gap between the distance between who she is and who he is, is worth the risk. And Abby can’t help but fall for him, hard. 80 hours of conversation practice with someone who seems to exclusively wear baseball caps and jerseys.īut Zeke in French is a different person than Zeke in English. That turns out to be impossible, though, because her French partner is the exact kind of boy she was hoping to avoid. A summer of culture and language, with no sports in sight. Seventeen-year old Abby has only one goal for her summer: to make sure she is fluent in French-well, that, and to get as far away from baseball and her Cubs-obsessed family as possible. The Distance From A to Z – Natalie Blitt – HarperCollins – Published 12 January 2016

The Distance from A to Z by Natalie Blitt