Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.
Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.
Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.
When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?
The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.
Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.
It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.
Review: So much to love about this story! It felt so real and earnest. This book landed just right for me, even despite including two tropes (friends to lovers and second chance romances) that I don't typically enjoy. I was immediately drawn in by the opening scene, where they both are at a wedding for their close high school friend. Both are secretly anxious and looking forward to seeing the other but have no clue the other is feeling the same way.
One aspect I deeply appreciated about this book is how real both Shiloh and Cary felt. Their lives and relationships are messy and complicated, as all lives are and all relationships with any depth and time together feel. I could feel the layers and nuances of their relationship that spans back to their teenage years. They misunderstand each other, poorly communicate, they're human! Not in a drama-filled way but in a very realistic way that felt true to life.
I also appreciated that Shiloh and Cary are described not as beautiful models. They have real and imperfect bodies. Shiloh is very tall with broad shoulders but to Cary, who loves and knows her so intimately, she is beautiful. This also felt very realistic and true to me, and I deeply loved reading a love story about two ordinary, imperfect people.
There was something agonizing about how Shiloh and Cary seem so right for each other and deeply drawn to one another yet spend so many years apart. It made me just want to shake my fist in the air in frustration that they couldn't have figured it out so much sooner! And yet, I do think perhaps it was a situation where it just wasn't there time yet. And had they gotten together sooner, maybe it wouldn't have worked.
Late in the novel, we learn that Shiloh has some emotional scars as a result of her first husband's behavior. While this is skirted around, I wish it had been explored in a little more depth between Shiloh and Cary. I also was a little tormented at the ongoing distance between the two due to Cary being in the navy. While this is life - nothing is ever perfect or ideal - it did bother me that they were going to always be apart much of the time whether they were a couple or not. Finally, a minor complaint! Both of their names were gender neutral, and I got confused so many times early on in the audio forgetting if the guy or the girl was Shiloh and same with Cary. Could've gone either way with those names.
A really lovely, moving, realistic love story! I tore through this.
Review: 4.5
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