Book: The Statistical Probability of Love at First SightAuthor: Jennifer E. Smith
Published: 2012
Source: Local Library
It all starts when Hadley misses her plane. She's going to London to attend her father's wedding to the woman for whom he left her, her mom, and their country. As anyone could guess, she's extremely disinterested in being there, and had scheduled things to spend as little time in the UK as possible. Being put on a later flight means that she'll be lucky to land on the church doorstep in time.
But being put on a later flight also means she gets to sit next to Oliver, a British boy only a year older than herself, who draws ducks on napkins and keeps her talking. She finds herself telling him that she's never told anyone else, as if they'd known each other forever.
But it's only a plane flight, no matter how many time zones they cross. When they land at Heathrow, they'll never see each other again. Right?
The thing that kept drifting across my brain, especially as I got toward the end, was that this was not a romance. It's not the story of Hadley-and-Oliver. It's the story of Hadley, period. (Full stop, if you're reading in the UK.) This is a book about Hadley finally accepting the upheavals of the past couple of years, understanding her parents' imperfections, and still being able to love them. Oliver, for all his swoony quirky cuteness, is a mirror that allows her to see things clearly.
This is not a dig at the book. I really enjoyed it and I thought it worked well as a story about a girl starting to see that flaws and mistakes don't mean that you have to cut someone out of your life.
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