Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith

Here's a quick blurb from the Goodreads page: What's worse than getting dumped? Not even knowing if you've been dumped. Joy got no goodbye, and certainly no explanation when Zan - the love of her life and the only good thing about stifling, backward Haven, Utah - unceremoniously and unexpectedly left for college a year early. Joy needs closure almost as much as she needs Zan, so she heads for California, and Zan, riding shotgun beside Zan's former-best-friend Noah.

Original and insightful, quirky and crushing, Joy's story is told in surprising and artfully shifting flashbacks between her life then and now. Exquisite craft and wry, relatable humor signal the arrival of Emily Wing Smith as a breakout talent.

My Take

First off, let me apologize for not updating my blog regularly.  I've been working almost 80 hours some weeks and just can't sacrifice the time.  I'll try to be better.  In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

Aahh, teenage love!  Great, right?!  Pretty torturous really.  Especially if you're Joy.  Her boyfriend, Zan abandoned her.  To make matters worse, she has no idea why.  He only left his best friend Noah to look after her.  Noah, who she finds excruciatingly annoying.

I wasn't sure if I could really connect with these characters at first, but I did.  I found myself enjoying the story.  There were times I wanted to scream at Joy to "wake up".

Noah is a great guy who is more than willing to be roped into whatever Joy chooses.  He keeps trying to show her what a nice guy he is.  I kept thinking, she had to realize it before he gave up and quit being a nice guy. 

Everyone needs closure, right?  Go along on the journey and see if Joy ever gets any closure with Zan?  And where would that leave Noah anyway?

This is one of the books in the Contemps Challenge also.  I'm giving it 4 sweet kisses!