Wanderlost by Jen Malone

Wanderlost by Jen Malone

Welcome to Adorable Contemp Day, where I showcase three adorable contemporaries that will you feeling the feels. Trust me, you will want to check them out if you’re ready for some adorable, cheesy goodness. Check out my other two as well!

Coming off my own recent trip to Europe, I was so pumped to read this book. It promised fun Europe adventures, a great group of funny senior citizens, and an adorable love story. I was certainly not disappointed with the feels this book gave me, although I was a bit depressed that I had only been to one of the places that Aubree had been so I couldn’t awkwardly shout at my book – and myself – “WELL, I’VE BEEN THERE!”

Yeah, there was not much of that going on, and that stunk. It just made me crave going back to there and seeing more of the beautiful continent. Shucks.

This book is about Aubree, who is kind of the “lesser” sister. Her older college-aged sister, Elizabeth, is the perfect one and always has been. So when screw-up, Aubree, throws a party that ends up with the cops at the door, perfect Elizabeth agrees to take the fall, causing a big change in schedule for her perfect plan of touting around a group of six elderly citizens on a trip of their lives. Enter in Aubree who will go instead of Elizabeth and pretend to be her. Can you just imagine all the ways it goes wrong? Because they pretty much all come true.

I thoroughly enjoyed Aubree, who I was a bit hesitant about at first. Truthfully, I’m a bit more type A like Elizabeth, so I was expecting that I totally wouldn’t get Aubree’s side of things. Wild child is just in my vocabulary. Helmets, knee pads, and a heck of a lot of padding are there, though. So I was surprised by just how much I felt for Aubree, and how I was actually rooting for her side instead of Elizabeth. I truly felt for her and how much being overlooked by her sister saddened her. It really was a touching story between these two, and the characterization was done beautifully.

The love story between her and Sam did move a bit fast, but it fit with the predictably, cheesy love story that I knew that I was getting into. They really were adorable together, but I’m not going to lie – it was fast. Like, Fast and the Furious fast. So, if you’re welling to ignore the instalove, it’s adorbs.

What I didn’t expect from this story was the heart and warmth I felt for her group of senior citizens. I loved their little ragtag group, and I was cheering for all of them to have the time of their lives. Man, I want my own posse of senior citizens at this point. We would rule Europe.

I was also surprised by the little twist that Jen Malone brought. In little contemporaries like this, it is hard to bring something new, and man, the surprise that she brought had me reeling. It got real dark, real fast, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. For having an adorable cover, it definitely wasn’t all sunshine, rainbows, and pictures of young people holding their arms out in what should be a rom com music montage. I appreciated the effort to make it more real, but man, I didn’t see that coming.

Also, Jen Malone’s writing style was a breeze to read, and I whipped through this book so quickly.

Overall, a great read, and I am definitely on the look out for more of her books in the future. Now, I really gotta go look at how to become an European tour guide specializing in senior citizen buses. Ciao!

Check it out: