Ava Helmer and Genevieve Goldman have been best friends forever, growing up in Santa Monica, California. Now they're headed off to college--on opposite sides of the country. Ava is attending a University of California campus near home, as a film major. Gen is headed to Boston, to attend Emerson College and become a journalist.
Being Gen Z new adults, that's no reason for them not to be in constant contact with each other. They're going to document their lives, multiple times a day, in texts, emails, and Instagram.
Ava is anxious and insecure, with mental health issues she's dealt with all her life. College life creates new stresses, with a hunt for a new stable equilibrium. Gen is seemingly calmer, more confident, more outgoing--but she has her own issues, including an alcoholic father, a mother who enables him, and something I can deeply, personally relate to: Her parents, not necessarily intentionally, very much favor her younger sister. (This is not a good thing to do to either of your kids. Just saying.)
A continent apart, they go through living away from home, dorm life, first loves, and struggles with the challenges of actually pursuing their career dreams. For one of them, there's the small matter of coming out, and for the other, learning how to relate to that as an adult friend.
And they grow and change. Will their friendship survive the changes?
It's a fun book, even if I can relate to Ava's mental health issues and Gen's parent and sister issues a little too well.
Recommended if you like young adult contemporary fiction.
I bought this audiobook.
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