4 Star
A New City A New Start. Same Old Demons.
Your flight is now boarding! Join Alex Sinclair for a life-changing, trans-Atlantic journey. London Belongs to Me is a coming-of-age story about friendship, following your dreams, and learning when to let go … and when to hang on.
Meet Alex, a recent college graduate from Tallahassee, Florida in love with London, pop culture, and comic cons. It’s not easy being twenty-one-years-old, and Alex has never been the most popular girl. She’s an outsider, a geeky fangirl … with dreams of becoming a playwright in a city she’s loved from afar, but never visited. Fleeing America after a devastating betrayal, she believes London is where she’ll be understood, where she belongs. But Alex’s past of panic attacks and broken relationships is hard to escape. When her demons team up with a jealous rival determined to destroy her new British life, Alex begins to question everything: her life-long dream, her new friends, and whether London is where she truly belongs.
Kaley- 4 Star
London Belongs to Me is exactly the kind of New Adult story I’ve been looking for. Too many books in the category are full of angst and danger. I want more stories of early 20somethings just out of college in a world that I live in. Jacquelyn Middleton delivered a sweet, funny, heartfelt, and real novel with a main character I immediately identified with.
I was 1000% invested in Alex’s life from the very first second I met her. I felt everything she was feeling and I was rooting for her all the way. I liked that she was smart and driven but she was also human and therefore flawed. It was so hard for her to accept help and let go of the past and I loved reading as she slowly worked through those issues. I also totally loved that she was a fangirl. There aren’t enough books about twentysomethings who are unapologetic nerds.
There were some times where I found myself wondering what on earth some of the characters were thinking but I had to remind myself that 21 is not the easiest time, especially when you’re in a new country and everything seems to be going wrong.
Some of the secondary characters weren’t as well developed as I would have liked. For example, I know Olivia is the antagonist but I’d rather have more insight into Lucy, Alex’s best friend, than Olivia. Or Mark! I wanted to know more about him. He still remained so much of a mystery even by the end of the novel. The pacing was just a little slow as well and I sometimes had trouble figuring out what month it was since the story does take place over a year and some odd months. I’m glad it did take place over such a long period of time because it was much more realistic but it wasn’t always immediately easy to follow.
Overall, even if the writing could have been cleaned up ever so slightly, the story in London Belongs to Me completely won me over. I hope Jacquelyn Middleton writes another contemporary novel soon!
Thank you to the author for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
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