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samanthabreading 's review for:
Slow Dance: A Novel
by Rainbow Rowell
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Our spectacular book club moderator asked us to describe this book in just one word. For me it was wholeheartedly “nostalgic”.
Slow Dance evoked so many similar memories of my own first love with my childhood best friend 🥹😭❤️ and I appreciate how it has facilitated an opportunity to sit with some of the feelings I didn’t know how to really process at 15-16 and could now reflect on in adulthood.
Cary and Shiloh are childhood best friends who start to explore their feelings for one another post high school. Rowell takes the reader back and forth in time and illustrates such a special dance (the title is very fitting) of how they reconnect on and off again over the years into their adulthood when Cary returns to their hometown from Naval active duty. Reading how these two navigate their relationship and learn each other was truly touching and emotional in the best way for me. The author reflected raw and REAL emotion so effortlessly on the page. I felt this in many ways: In Shiloh’s and Cary’s nervousness to just BE together, Shiloh’s insecurities and anxieties at times, especially where she struggles to grasp how Cary could be in love and DESIRE her, their awkwardness when learning each other, Shiloh’s pain from her previous marriage (I thought the background of her marriage to Ryan was contrasted beautifully to her relationship with Cary at one point), interactions with Shiloh’s children and life as a single mom, and their conversations around how love isn’t enough to sustain a life with someone.
Thank you Rainbow Rowell for gifting us this genuine and heartwarming story that I adored reading in real time, and one that has helped heal me again during and after too. 🥹❤️
Slow Dance evoked so many similar memories of my own first love with my childhood best friend 🥹😭❤️ and I appreciate how it has facilitated an opportunity to sit with some of the feelings I didn’t know how to really process at 15-16 and could now reflect on in adulthood.
Cary and Shiloh are childhood best friends who start to explore their feelings for one another post high school. Rowell takes the reader back and forth in time and illustrates such a special dance (the title is very fitting) of how they reconnect on and off again over the years into their adulthood when Cary returns to their hometown from Naval active duty. Reading how these two navigate their relationship and learn each other was truly touching and emotional in the best way for me. The author reflected raw and REAL emotion so effortlessly on the page. I felt this in many ways: In Shiloh’s and Cary’s nervousness to just BE together, Shiloh’s insecurities and anxieties at times, especially where she struggles to grasp how Cary could be in love and DESIRE her, their awkwardness when learning each other, Shiloh’s pain from her previous marriage (I thought the background of her marriage to Ryan was contrasted beautifully to her relationship with Cary at one point), interactions with Shiloh’s children and life as a single mom, and their conversations around how love isn’t enough to sustain a life with someone.
Thank you Rainbow Rowell for gifting us this genuine and heartwarming story that I adored reading in real time, and one that has helped heal me again during and after too. 🥹❤️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual content, Medical content
Moderate: Terminal illness, Pregnancy
Minor: Abandonment