Lucie Waldon is a writer with her head in the clouds—literally. A flight attendant based in Washington, DC, Waldon spends her days writing from the jump seat and searching the world for new stories. She is also the author of The Layover. You can find her online at luciewaldon.com, or on Instagram @AllAboutThat_Lace.
Liv Bakersfield is used to living her life in "shoulds." Be fit. Be financially responsible. Be your best self. An overworked graphic designer, she's stretched so thin that she's about to miss yet another vacation with her beloved group of college friends. But when Liv finally decides to start saying no, it feels good . . . good enough to leap straight into quitting her job and hopping on a plane to join them in South Africa. Amid the exotic landscape and unforgettable sights, Liv expects sun and safari animals and an easy time with her best friends. But such close proximity makes everything more complicated, especially with the emotionally unavailable Lucas Deiss. Their friendship is the only thing in her life that's still solid, and she vows to do anything she can to keep the group together. But once they get back to LA, Liv discovers that her leap of faith has become a freefall, sending her crashing into Deiss's arms. With the trust of the people she loves most on the line, Liv must decide between doing what she should . . . and risking everything for what she shouldn't want.
From the Jump is such a fun, engaging romance, and a perfect introductory novel to the genre, should anyone want to know where to start (romance can feel like an overwhelming genre to dive into, nowadays!). There were plenty of moments where I held my breath waiting for the main characters to figure out how they felt about one another. I really loved how the existential question of the novel was how we can form friendships with people without letting other intrafriendship group romantic relationships affect the group's dynamic. Waldon also explored self-growth, as Liv has to learn how to break out of her comfort zone to live the life she really wants to live—those types of stories always get me, because I feel like it's so easy to fall into the life that you're told you're supposed to want, which makes it even harder to live the way you want to. Seeing this story on the page will never not be powerful to me.
The only drawback, for me, were the holes that I felt existed throughout the narrative. Other reviewers point these out, too. The first one for me was, if this group of friends is so tight, how come they don't try to do more affordable trips so that Liv could join, especially in the earlier years of the trip tradition? I also felt like we didn't see conversations happen on the page that would have helped us understand the characters better. There are several instances where conversations are glossed over, or summarized, and that made me feel rather discombobulated while reading. For example, how did Liv convince Simone to keep Diess's secret? I was confused by Simone's emotions, and wanted to understand her better as a character, but felt like we never got that far into understanding her at all. Also, Diess going to dinner with Zoe despite his insistence that he wanted to hang out with Liv—and then we never learn why he went with Zoe anyways? Seeing those conversations would have worked well to gaining necessary context. Not seeing them left nagging questions in the back of my head while trying to read.
Similarly, I felt like we didn't get as much insight into either of the main characters as we could have. For example, Liv's past is mentioned several times, and there's even a cryptic note about how someone stole something from her. When we finally learn what was stolen, there's no dive into why that was so heartbreaking and the subsequent fallout Liv experienced. The interim years are quietly explained away, without much detail that would have had me connecting with Liv on a deeper level. For Diess, and really all of the other friends in the friend group, I felt like we have an understanding of their personalities and maybe a few highlights (career, college behavior, etc.) but we don't really get to learn their background past that. I, for one, wanted to know more about Simone and Phoebe, and felt that learning more about them would have helped readers understanding their motivations.
All of the holes aside, I think all of this goes to show Waldon's ability to craft an engaging narrative. I was invested in this friend group, and I wanted to know how it would all work out for them. I was left just wanting to know more about how it all worked together, hence all of my previous questions. I think the true strength of this novel is its feel-good nature and what a perfect vacation read it is.
I might check out The Layover because I loved how quickly I was engaged with the story in From the Jump and sometimes you just need to read the books that don't always require you to think too hard to be engaged instantly! Until then, you can find Waldon online at luciewaldon.com, or on Instagram @AllAboutThat_Lace.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
Comments
Post a Comment