Lo so, ci siamo visti giusto l'altro giorno con la recensione di questo romanzo, ma essendo questa la mia tappa del blogtour deve andare online anche in inglese - lo sapete, no?
You have to know English isn’t my first language, so feel free to correct me if I make some mistakes while writing this review.
Author: Eric Smith
Publication Date: November 2nd 2021
Pages: 336 (Kindle Edition)
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3ydHhFx
Plot: No one ever said love would be easy…but did they mention it would be freezing?
Adam Stillwater is in over his head. At least, that’s what his best friend would say. And his mom. And the guy who runs the hardware store down the street. But this pinball arcade is the only piece of his dad that Adam has left, and he’s determined to protect it from Philadelphia’s newest tech mogul, who wants to turn it into another one of his cold, lifeless gaming cafés.
Whitney Mitchell doesn’t know how she got here. Her parents split up. She lost all her friends. Her boyfriend dumped her. And now she’s spending her senior year running social media for her dad’s chain of super successful gaming cafés—which mostly consists of trading insults with that decrepit old pinball arcade across town.
But when a huge snowstorm hits, Adam and Whitney suddenly find themselves trapped inside the arcade. Cut off from their families, their worlds, and their responsibilities, the tension between them seems to melt away, leaving something else in its place. But what happens when the storm stops?
Publication Date: November 2nd 2021
Pages: 336 (Kindle Edition)
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Amazon Link: https://amzn.to/3ydHhFx
Plot: No one ever said love would be easy…but did they mention it would be freezing?
Adam Stillwater is in over his head. At least, that’s what his best friend would say. And his mom. And the guy who runs the hardware store down the street. But this pinball arcade is the only piece of his dad that Adam has left, and he’s determined to protect it from Philadelphia’s newest tech mogul, who wants to turn it into another one of his cold, lifeless gaming cafés.
Whitney Mitchell doesn’t know how she got here. Her parents split up. She lost all her friends. Her boyfriend dumped her. And now she’s spending her senior year running social media for her dad’s chain of super successful gaming cafés—which mostly consists of trading insults with that decrepit old pinball arcade across town.
But when a huge snowstorm hits, Adam and Whitney suddenly find themselves trapped inside the arcade. Cut off from their families, their worlds, and their responsibilities, the tension between them seems to melt away, leaving something else in its place. But what happens when the storm stops?
--- ---
Adam and Whitney were once friends. A long time ago, when they both still lived in South Philly and Whitney's father started one failing startup after another, Whitney's mother had to do more than one job to support the family and Whitney spent her time with Adam and his family - Adam's father took them to concerts, played them music from when he was younger and a lot of time had been spent in the family arcade. Pinball was Adam's father's joy and passion - a passion that he then passed down on to his son who, even now four years after his loss, knows a lot of trivia about it, knows which machines are rarer and tries, unsuccessfully, to finish the one his father had started.
It's been four years since he and Whitney have been friends - four years since the grief of losing his father left Adam self-isolating, four years since Whitney stopped trying to reach him, four years since they started high school and the school social hierarchies seem to have done the rest.
To make things worse, two years ago the umpteenth startup that Whitney's father has tried to start has proved to be a success: now they are rich, they live in West Philadelphia, they have already opened two gaming cafés, Randall Mitchell is so busy promoting the business he only pays attention to his daughter when she talks to him about work, Whitney's brother - Nick - is an arrogant guy who forgot he was poor once and now thinks money can fix everything. Her mother left her dad for these very reasons and now Randall Mitchell wants to expand and wants to buy the building in Old City that houses the Stillwater family arcade - pinball time is over, Adam knows it as well as his mother knows, but Adam struggles to let go of the only tangible remains of his father so the fights with Whitney on Twitter are getting more and more heated.
Could the annual Old City Winter Festival mitigate things?
It's been four years since he and Whitney have been friends - four years since the grief of losing his father left Adam self-isolating, four years since Whitney stopped trying to reach him, four years since they started high school and the school social hierarchies seem to have done the rest.
To make things worse, two years ago the umpteenth startup that Whitney's father has tried to start has proved to be a success: now they are rich, they live in West Philadelphia, they have already opened two gaming cafés, Randall Mitchell is so busy promoting the business he only pays attention to his daughter when she talks to him about work, Whitney's brother - Nick - is an arrogant guy who forgot he was poor once and now thinks money can fix everything. Her mother left her dad for these very reasons and now Randall Mitchell wants to expand and wants to buy the building in Old City that houses the Stillwater family arcade - pinball time is over, Adam knows it as well as his mother knows, but Adam struggles to let go of the only tangible remains of his father so the fights with Whitney on Twitter are getting more and more heated.
Could the annual Old City Winter Festival mitigate things?
You Can Go Your Own Way is a book that starts slowly, but then picks up a nice pace. It's narrated from both the points of view of Adam and Whitney taking turns and thus we see their mutual thoughts.
More than focusing on the love story, this book focuses on family and letting go of things to grow and move forward in life. Both have their demons to deal with: Adam remains anchored to his father with all his strength, trying to fix the pinball machines that break or trying to build the one he never managed to finish, dressing in his old leather jacket and his old t-shirts from old bands; Whitney feels like she's invisible to her father and feels she has to work for the café to be recognized - as if working hard on social media and dealing with the good and the bad of internet could gain her visibility and win her some love.
Both try to hold together the pieces of a family that no longer exists as it once was and how they want to remember it - and both have also forgotten what the other was like before all this and the gap between them that seems insurmountable.
As I said before, the love story almost takes a back seat because this is more a novel about growth and coming-of-age: it's true they're close to real adult life, but they're still teenagers and neither of them is behaving as someone their age should do.
They both try to be adults for someone else: Adam helping his mom run the arcade as his father would have, Whitney running a part of her father's business by taking time away from everything else in her life. But we find that both of them are much more than that and, to their surprise, they discover it themselves - Adam discovers that perhaps it's not so much pinball that thrills him as much as electronic engineering, Whitney discovers that her passion for plants and terrarium compositions give her much more joy than what she currently does. Letting go is something that they struggle to comprehend and above all to accept, but as they spend time together - and discuss the past and the present - they understand it as necessary and inevitable. Whitney also has to struggle with toxic friendships and the understanding that many people are around her because they want something from her or her father now that they have money and success.
This book is also a sort of declaration of love to Philadelphia: so many places described, so much love for this city that even Adam's father wanted to build a pinball machine with Philly and its most famous places and characteristics as protagonists.
I loved all the pop culture references ranging from books, authors, movies, TV series and music - and how much my heart beat to see American Hi-Fi nominated, I thought I was the only one who knew and listened to them. when I was still in high school!
I also loved the Old City vibe, its Winter Festival, the solidarity and without-ulterior-motives support among business owners, always ready to hit the streets should any neighbors need help with anything - I loved the familiarity, the warmth, the gratitude, the trust between them all.
I would have liked if the part where Adam and Whitney get trapped inside the arcade due to the snow had been a little bit longer - and from the cover and blurb it would seem to take up a considerable amount of the book, but it doesn't.
You Can Go Your Own Way is still a very sweet book, at times funny and at times more serious, with two protagonists with whom it's extremely easy to empathize - Adam is a sweetheart, Nick and his father deserve a punch instead.
More than focusing on the love story, this book focuses on family and letting go of things to grow and move forward in life. Both have their demons to deal with: Adam remains anchored to his father with all his strength, trying to fix the pinball machines that break or trying to build the one he never managed to finish, dressing in his old leather jacket and his old t-shirts from old bands; Whitney feels like she's invisible to her father and feels she has to work for the café to be recognized - as if working hard on social media and dealing with the good and the bad of internet could gain her visibility and win her some love.
Both try to hold together the pieces of a family that no longer exists as it once was and how they want to remember it - and both have also forgotten what the other was like before all this and the gap between them that seems insurmountable.
As I said before, the love story almost takes a back seat because this is more a novel about growth and coming-of-age: it's true they're close to real adult life, but they're still teenagers and neither of them is behaving as someone their age should do.
They both try to be adults for someone else: Adam helping his mom run the arcade as his father would have, Whitney running a part of her father's business by taking time away from everything else in her life. But we find that both of them are much more than that and, to their surprise, they discover it themselves - Adam discovers that perhaps it's not so much pinball that thrills him as much as electronic engineering, Whitney discovers that her passion for plants and terrarium compositions give her much more joy than what she currently does. Letting go is something that they struggle to comprehend and above all to accept, but as they spend time together - and discuss the past and the present - they understand it as necessary and inevitable. Whitney also has to struggle with toxic friendships and the understanding that many people are around her because they want something from her or her father now that they have money and success.
This book is also a sort of declaration of love to Philadelphia: so many places described, so much love for this city that even Adam's father wanted to build a pinball machine with Philly and its most famous places and characteristics as protagonists.
I loved all the pop culture references ranging from books, authors, movies, TV series and music - and how much my heart beat to see American Hi-Fi nominated, I thought I was the only one who knew and listened to them. when I was still in high school!
I also loved the Old City vibe, its Winter Festival, the solidarity and without-ulterior-motives support among business owners, always ready to hit the streets should any neighbors need help with anything - I loved the familiarity, the warmth, the gratitude, the trust between them all.
I would have liked if the part where Adam and Whitney get trapped inside the arcade due to the snow had been a little bit longer - and from the cover and blurb it would seem to take up a considerable amount of the book, but it doesn't.
You Can Go Your Own Way is still a very sweet book, at times funny and at times more serious, with two protagonists with whom it's extremely easy to empathize - Adam is a sweetheart, Nick and his father deserve a punch instead.
Che dire... complimenti per riuscire a scrivere recensioni così in inglese *^*
RispondiEliminaMa grazie! *-*
Elimina