AUTHOR: Marina Gessner

SERIES: N/A

GENRE: YA, ROMANCE, CONTEMPORARY

RELEASE DATE: october 20th, 2015

PUBLISHER: G.P. Putnam’s Son

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK for review VIA Penguin’s FIRST TO READ

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Synopsis: “McKenna Berney is a lucky girl. She has a loving family and has been accepted to college for the fall. But McKenna has a different goal in mind: much to the chagrin of her parents, she defers her college acceptance to hike the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia with her best friend. And when her friend backs out, McKenna is determined to go through with the dangerous trip on her own. While on the Trail, she meets Sam. Having skipped out on an abusive dad and quit school, Sam has found a brief respite on the Trail, where everyone’s a drifter, at least temporarily.

Despite lives headed in opposite directions, McKenna and Sam fall in love on an emotionally charged journey of dizzying highs and devastating lows. When their punch-drunk love leads them off the trail, McKenna has to persevere in a way she never thought possible to beat the odds or risk both their lives.”

I just love strong female characters, which is probably what made this book sound so interesting to me! Mckenna definitely lived up to what I had hoped she would be, and even proved to be more stubborn than I am!

This story follows McKenna as she tackles hiking the Appalachian Trail alone, after her best friend decides not to go.  She does so much that I never would have thought to do a few years ago when I graduated high school: decides not to go directly to college and chooses instead to go on an extended hike that covers thousands of miles, alone. The fact that this is so far from what I chose to do (I went directly to college up in Washington) made it hard to relate to her character at first.

The setting of the Appalachian Trail for an extended period of time made it feel a little monotonous, but the static background allowed the characters to unfold and gave the reader a chance to become intimately familiar with them in a way that is not very common!

In the end I did relate to McKenna, mostly her stubbornness, and I admired her so much. Sam really came to life as a character, as McKenna fell in love with him and we were shown his inner secrets and provided with his back story.

Sam truly was what made me want to keep reading. I loved getting to know his character throughout the course of the story. I’m a sucker for a tragic back story, and Sam has a pretty sad one. His perseverance amazes me, and like McKenna, I think he deserves to thrive after all he has been through.

I really did enjoy this story, in the end. It was slow at times, but ultimately realistic in the pacing of the romance and the story. Due to the mostly static setting, there was an opportunity to focus on the characters. We were given an intimate look at the characters that I don’t see very often, but loved! The determination and strength that both McKenna and Sam possessed was inspiring.

OVERALL RATING: 4 OUT OF 5 STARS!