I am a big fan of Emma Lord and this book was no exception! I loved Riley's New York adventure and all the people she met along the way.

Riley and Tom are one of those couples that you can't help rooting for. I loved that at the beginning of their story Tom helps Riley out of her shell and later she returns the favor. Their inside jokes are beyond adorable and you can't help rooting for them.

One thing that I loved about this book is that I would have happily read a book about any of the side characters as well. While I love reading interconnected standalones where the side characters get their own book, I also love getting to see Riley's friends figure their lives out alongside her.

I particularly connected to Tom's story as I also struggled with fitting in after I moved as a teen. It is easy to blame a city for a bad experience with a person or group of people. In my case, I was going to run away to New York but I also fell in love and was back in the original city within a year and happy to be there.

I highly recommend this story to anyone who likes a YA romance. This one would be suitable for both teens and adults. I think it captures the transition from high school and college and what that feels like particularly well. If you are a big Sarah Dessen fan (like I am) this book will be for you!

🌶️ - This book contains a few kisses.

This started off very slowly for me but I'm glad I stuck with it. It's a sweet charming story with fun characters who are all distinct and memorable. The romance is very slow burn and this is more about discovering your place in the world rather than falling in love. I appreciated the relationships Riley built with each character and the NYC setting was like a character in itself. I'd recommend this to younger YA audiences who want a feel-good story.

Emma Lord is a must read YA author for me! The Getaway List is a great addition to her growing list of novels. The Getaway List follows Riley who upon high school graduation feels stifled by her mom and the reality that she did not get into any colleges. The only time she feels free and alive is with her best friend Tom who she hasn't seen in 3 years since he moved to New York City with his mom. As kids, Tom and Riley were inseparable, but since his move their have been many missed connections, canceled visits and few texts. Riley decides at graduation that she will go to New York to spend the weekend with Tom to complete their getaway list which includes all the fun things they planned to do on those cancelled trips. When Riley arrives in NYC it is like nothing has changed and everything has changed with Tom, their relationship and herself.

This was a good coming of age story about that scary transition from high school to whatever comes after. I really enjoyed the romance in this story. It was perfect for YA. I enjoyed Tom and Riley's friendship as well as the side characters that become part of their group. My biggest complaint was the portrayal in the beginning that Riley and Tom were troublemakers. I just didn't see that in either of them and so the explanation for Riley's moms concerns fell flat for me, even if she was a helicopter parent. I also wish we got more closure with Tom and his mom. Overall, this was a cute and fun read about love and found family read.

i love a ya romance and this had all the elements to make a fun one! best friends reuniting on a summer of mischief in new york city? sign me up! i loved all the side characters that lord created to build their crew because they made the story come to life. it definitely was a little preachy for me at points, spending longer chunks about self discovery than i think was needed and i would have loved more of young tom and riley, but overall a fun and sweet story!

I really really enjoyed this read. This definitely tugged a string from when I was this young. And how the city makes you feel, the possibilities, the freedom, I could relate.

Riley is feeling stuck at her high school graduation because she has no plans for the fall. After talking with her long-distance best friend, she decides that she should visit to complete a list they made at the beginning of high school.

I thought this story was really well written and I think there are themes that teenagers (and new adults) will connect with. I really enjoy all of Lord's books, but this one felt "older" to me compared to her others. There was a lot of soul bearing, which definitely happens, but it felt a little off. I would still recommend this to my older students as I do think that would enjoy it!

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this early via Netgalley!

I used to be the self proclaimed queen of YA, but here I am giving this novel 2 stars. I'm so sad, and I think I'm going to have to stop reading YA except for a few very, very special to me authors. Because man, this book just didn't land well with me.

I think the main reason this was so awful for me was that I could not get over the all together brattiness of the main character. This is why I think I'm done with YA. She was immature, entitled, and overall frustrating to read.

That said, I do like how Emma Lord composes stories - the adventure style writing so fun. I think I just need to stick to her adult novels from here on out!

The Getaway List is another delightful, heartfelt YA romance with endearing characters lovingly crafted by Emma Lord.

Tropes:
-Childhood Friends-to-Lovers
-Found Family
-Fresh Start

Plot at a glance: High school graduation makes Riley realize she no longer knows who she is or what she wants in life. She spent the past four years trying to be a Good Kid for her mom, that she’s forgotten what it feels like to make decisions for herself. Desperate for a change, Riley packs her bags and heads to New York to tackle The Getaway List with her childhood best friend Tom. The list is a compilation of all the adventures they’d dreamed of doing since Tom moved away years ago. Riley hopes that each adventure she crosses off the list will bring her closer to discovering what she wants to do next, but she gets much more than that.

Review: I don't even like the friends-to-lovers trope, but I absolutely adored The Getaway List. Emma Lord has an amazing gift for crafting realistic and charming characters that you want to spend as much time with as possible. It was a joy to watch Riley and Tom discover their feelings for each other. As with all Emma Lord books, there's an eclectic group of loveable friends who help Riley and Tom work through The Getaway List and get closer to discovering what they want out of life. I had a smile on my face every time the friend group got together.

Emma Lord also wove in compelling family issues for both Riley and Tom. She took great care to explore the different issues they had with their mom's - Riley's mom let her own past negatively impact Riley's ability to take chances and trust herself throughout high school, while Tom's mom's hands-off parenting caused him to shut down in New York and lead a sheltered life.

I cannot recommend Emma Lord's writing enough! I'm incredibly excited to see what she does with her adult debut in summer 2024.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press (Wednesday Books) for the chance to read this digital ARC.

I received an e-galley of The Getaway List by Emma Lord from St. Martin's Press in exchange for an honest review.

What I liked:
- the concept of the Getaway List that Riley and Tom put together as a list of all the adventures that they wanted to go on since he moved away
- the best friendship between Riley and Tom; and the subsequent found family that they create in New York together
- the friends to lovers trope, because I love young love based on a foundation of friendship
- the excitement that is New York City which Emma Lord seems to capture in this story

What I didn't like:
- the best friendship between Riley and Tom; I liked it but also didn't because of the way in which they became distant and I'm not sure if I believed that they truly resolved what went wrong

Generally I enjoyed this book. It was cute, fun, and filled with a cast of young teenagers in New York City as they navigated through friendship, love, and family.

I am an unabashed fan of Emma Lord despite the fact that I am nowhere near the age of her target audience, but she has a way of writing characters that are easy to connect to and incredibly loveable. They always feel like a throwback to my teen years or like people I knew. It makes it very easy to fall into the story and root for the best possible outcomes for everyone.

The Getaway List is the story of two teens who are very lost but know they have each other no matter what.
When Riley graduates from high school feeling lost and with no plans for her future but free time and opportunity, she instantly gets on a bus to New York City to visit her best friend Tom, whom she hasn't seen in person in 4 years. That her mom isn't happy with her doing it or that Tom doesn't know she's coming is something she'll worry about later.
Tom has never felt a part of New York despite his mom's fame and career affording them the best. He's a loner who feels apart from everything except the best friend he left behind when his mom hit the big time. Until Riley shows up at his door and they decide to do the things they'd planned to do all those years go on what they called their Getaway List.
As they set off on their adventures across NYC, they find new and old friends to widen their world as well as the possibility of their friendship being a whole lot more than they ever thought possible.

It's a fun and heartfelt story that's full of great little moments of friendship and finding yourself. It did feel a little too heavy at certain times for what I look for in an Emma Lord book, but that's way more on me than on the book itself.


Very happy thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the excellent read!

The Getaway List is everything I love about YA fiction - a delightful cast of characters, achingly hopeful, relatable growing pains, and bonus, it's downright funny. Riley reminded me of my younger self and her adventures with Tom and her other friends made me want to go back in time and relive my younger years.

Thank you to Netgalley, Wednesday, and the author for the eARC in exchange for my review.

Emma Lord books are always so stinkin' cute! The whole cast of characters in The Getaway List feel so real and relatable. This is a perfect read for when you want a fluffy and wholesome new adult with substance.

3.5

The very first thought I had while reading this book was surprise at how similar the main character, Riley, and I were.

It felt as though Emma Lord somehow snuck into my brain and jotted down all my thoughts. Riley’s feelings about graduating high school and her anxiety over her future felt so real, so similar to my own feelings on being an Adult that it was almost terrifying, in a way, to connect with a character as much as I connected with Riley.

Sure of really only one thing in her life, Riley latches onto it–her friendship with Tom, who moved to New York with his mom a few years before the story starts–and begins designing plans to visit him for the weekend. The two had a list of things they wanted to do before he moved away, and Riley plans on doing everything on the list… only to have her plans derailed when she realizes that she feels more like herself in New York than she ever felt at home.

I fall in love with almost every Emma Lord book I read, so it was no surprise to find myself really enjoying Riley and Tom’s story. It’s just so easy to fall in love with all of these books, and I love her tendency to hint at her past books in her new ones, like all these stories are existing simultaneously in this big, lovely world.

It’s easy to fall in love with life in an Emma Lord book.

That being said, The Getaway List isn’t my favorite book by this author. While I loved the characters’ found family vibes and loved seeing Riley find herself in New York, there was just something off that I can’t quite put my finger on. Was it the sometimes-antagonistic relationship between Riley and Tom VS their moms, even though I can understand the parents were just trying their best? Was it Riley and Tom’s relationship, solely because friends-to-lovers is a trope I struggle with?

While I can’t quite explain it, I can say that I really enjoyed this book, and I’m excited for more Emma Lord books in the future!

I really enjoyed this. It reminded me a lot of Kasie West's books, which is one of the few contemporary romance authors I read regularly. I found the plot and characters to be engaging enough to want to keep reading, and I felt that New York was the perfect setting for it. I did find a couple of things to be slightly hard to believe with everything coming together the way it did, but it wasn't enough to detract from the story.

I like the idea of a getaway list. Similar to a bucket list, it was a way for Tom and Riley to connect and get away to experience life. I have no problems with bucket lists, but a getaway list does feel a little more "in the now" instead of "in the future", which I like. Through the list and her impulse decision to move to New York, Riley gets to experience much of life and grow as a person. And the streets of New York were a perfect place for this to happen. I can't imagine any other city that would have worked as well. Having been to New York a few times, I could imagine all the places that were described which helped get me into the story more. The supporting cast of characters was also well done and well rounded, which helped give more life to the story.

My biggest gripes were all the constant name droppings of popular things (TikTok and such), and all the Taylor Swift references (I get that most teens adore her, but I absolutely can't stand her and would love to go one day without some reference of her invading my life.) I also wish the author had discussed Tom's relationship with his mom more, as we are left in the dark about a lot of things. However, these things weren't enough to totally detract from the story. For anyone who enjoys Kasie West, Emma Lord, or contemporary romance, this is worth picking up.

I read my first Emma Lord book, Tweet Cute in 2021 and then proceeded to catch up with her backlist immediately as well as read every new book she released every January since. This is my fifth book by Emma Lord and I loved this one just as much as the others! Every book has felt so relatable that I feel like they were made for me. This one especially. It's like her books seem to find me when I need them most.

I really loved all the characters in this book so much and saw a little bit of myself in all of them! I loved the writing part of it a lot, the workshop as well as Luca and Riley's writing discussions, because it felt like continued motivation for me to keep doing what I want to do. I also loved the friendship dynamics between Riley and Tom and the inevitable change that relationships go though because of long distance and being apart for an extended period of time. I also really loved the conflict/ arc between the moms and Riley and Tom because it was way too real. I also really loved just revisiting New York from Emma Lord's lenses once again! I feel like I'm half in love with the city just because of the way she writes about it!

tbh, I feel a little raw still after just finishing the book so I don't have a more coherent review for it but I felt a lot of emotions, including happiness, joy, sadness, and pain. Typical experience of reading an Emma Lord book for me, it seems. Anyway, I loved it a lot a lot a lot. Feeling a little more prepared for the unmitigated chaos that 2024 will bring after reading this one :)

Emma Lord writes the sweetest coming of age romance novels, and this one is no exception! Wanting to do something different than what is expected after her high school graduation, Riley decides to go off to New York to reconnect with her best friend Tom. Their relationship hasn't been quite the same since his mother's job took him away, and Riley is looking forward to seeing him in person (and hopefully checking some things off of the Getaway List they created together). Through their adventures they connect not only with each other but some newfound friends. They also discover more about who they are as individuals. .

This is a very sweet story about finding your people and finding yourself. It's a great reminder to surround yourself with those who support your dreams and love you no matter what. Having a teenage daughter of my own, I also loved the mother/daughter storyline and growth. By the end of this book I had fallen in love with the friend group and the entire friends to lovers story. My teenager would love this one as well, and I won't hesitate to pick it up and give it to her when it is released.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday books for the advanced copy to read and review.

This story of high school friends reconnecting in New York City during the summer after graduation was an engrossing read. I loved the friendship between main characters Riley and Tom, and the various little reveals about their history that deepened my understanding of both of them. I also loved the tension between Riley and her single mom. Being in my 40s, I'm finding myself sympathizing more and more with the parents in YA, but the conflict between these two was so well-done, I truly felt torn about who was right a lot of the time. Supporting character Mariella is also a bright spot in this book. Learning her background and how it intertwines with Tom's was one of my favorite threads of this story. This is a great read for high schoolers who have ever been separated from their own best friends or who are eagerly anticipating their first forays into independence.

With her latest novel, Emma Lord has penned one of the most relatable coming of age stories I’ve ever read. She perfectly captures what I think is a pretty universal experience for most young people as they turn 18, graduate from high school, and look to leave home and find their path forward as adults, in some cases, before their parents are really ready to let them go.

Riley finds herself in just such a situation when we meet her on her graduation day. She has been following a path her mom laid out for her but then fails to get into any of the colleges she applied to. Her mom is pushing her to go ahead and at least start community college, but Riley just isn’t feeling it and after some awkward exchanges with her mother where she really has to stress the fact that she is now an adult, Riley finally just tells her that she is going to NYC to see her childhood best friend, Tom, and to think about what she wants.

I loved seeing Riley re-connect with Tom. Their bond was clearly a special one and I especially loved that they still had this “getaway list” they had written years before and that they were now determined to actually complete the items on the list. Not only does this list help facilitate Riley & Tom’s re-connection but it also introduces Riley to several wonderful new friends who become like family for her. And while the list and its antics are meant to be fun, they also start to open Riley’s eyes and give her some concrete thoughts about what she might like her future to look like.

There is also a sweet romance brewing as Riley realizes she may have more than just friendly feelings for Tom, but at its heart, The Getaway List is really about Riley’s personal journey and Emma Lord has delivered her readers yet another gem of a read.

4 1/2 stars

This is the third novel by this author that I have read and this novel cemented the fact that I will read anything Emma Lord writes, This was a cute and heartfelt story with very relatable characters and relationships. I loved the bonds of friendships explored in this book. It was a terrific story.

This book equally gave me "You go Glen Coco!" vibes and also really tapped into my now I'm an adult and have lost a bit of that adventure and wanted to scream "There's no time for risks!"

YA romance, did I realize that? No, I did not. See I knew it was she just graduated high school but I expected it to lean more into NA and college-esque but it still read very YA and high school for me. Tom and Riley have a beautiful friendship and the grand adventures mixed with some simplicity and mundane was fun to ride along with them. New York is always the perfect setting for these crazy escape your life and start fresh tropes and of course it worked here well.

It's a very sweet coming of age novel that shed some light on relatable themes and though it's been a while since I've faced any of the decisions that are viewed as challenges here (news flash- I still don't know what I want or am doing either. Your twenties don't fix anything), it transported me right back to the time that I was facing similar challenges.