Title: The Geography of You and Me                                                   

Author: Jennifer E. Smith

Published by: Poppy

Date published: April 5, 2014

Genres: contemporary romance

Book Length: 352 pages

Steam Rating: sweet 

Main Characters: Owen and Lucy 

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Owen and Lucy share a similar sense of humor and the joy they feel in each other’s company radiates off the pages.

Lucy and Owen meet when they’re stuck in an elevator in their New York City apartment building during a citywide blackout. They’re drawn to one another but circumstances pull them a continent apart. Can love survive if it hasn’t had a chance to develop past one wonderful night on a Manhattan rooftop?

THE COUPLE: Lucy is a loner and a bookworm. Since she’s happy with her books and roaming Manhattan solo and is used to being alone as her parents travel a great deal, she’s surprised that she wants to spend time with Owen despite having just met him. Owen is more mysterious; he and his father are both rootless after the death of Owen’s mother. But Owen and Lucy share a similar sense of humor and the joy they feel in each other’s company radiates off the pages.

OVERALL: I’m a big fan of Smith’s The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and This is What Happy Looks Like. I was more immediately pulled into those stories than this one, probably because Smith set herself such a difficult task: showing us two people falling in love when they go pages and pages – most of the book – without seeing each other or even writing to one another. I have to admit that I wanted more dialogue between Owen and Lucy, more chances for them to interact, even though I get that the whole point is that they’ve been separated. Still, I found the charming Scot who Lucy dates when she’s living in Edinburgh at least as attractive as Owen, which diminishes the idea that Owen and Lucy’s love was meant to be. But when Owen and Lucy are together, you want them to remain that way.

SMOOCH METER: 3 smooches (I know it’s the exact opposite of the point of this book, but I wanted more Owen and Lucy together. I wanted to see their love develop).

He couldn’t find the words. And so instead they just stood there, regarding each other silently, the room suddenly a quiet as the elevator had been, as comfortable as the kitchen floor, as remote as the roof. Because that’s what happened when you were with someone like that: the world shrank to just the right size. It molded itself to fit only the two of you, and nothing more.

Have you ever had a long-distance love affair or flirtation? Anything you can share with us?