A sweet story about best friends in New York City. Full of first love and Taylor Swift references. It's very cutesy.

I enjoyed Emma Lord's The Getaway List. It's an easy, fun read.

Riley, the main character, is relatable, especially for anyone who is a people pleaser. She spends her days trying to live up to her mom's expectations. She lives a busy life as a high school kid. But she misses her best friend who has moved to New York. On a whim, and against her mom's wishes, she moves to New York for a summer where she reconnects with her best friend, Tom, and meets his NY friends.

Together they tackle the Getaway List, a bucket list of adventures. Beyond the bucket list, both Riley and Tom have family drama they need to work through and help each other out with. Along the way, their relationship begins to fall back into routine. Let's just say, I'm a sucker for friends to lovers...

I'm extra grateful to have received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and St. Martins Press for my review. This book will be published January 23, 2024.

I loooooved this! I went into it expecting a romance but got a found family instead that made my heart feel so full. Emma Lord has become one of my favourite authors in 2023 and her writing is amazing always!

The Getaway List by Emma Lord is a sweet YA rom-com full of friendship and adventure. Riley's hit with a double whammy on her high school graduation day... First, she realizes she's been trying way too hard to be the perfect kid for her mom and has lost sight of who she really is. Second, she's clueless about what she wants in life because of it. What was intended as a weekend to New York City to see her childhood bestie, ends up as a summer of discovery.

Riley and Tom created the Getaway List of adventures when they were kids but Tom moved away before they could be completed. Tom's been distant since his mom's career took off but when Riley shows up in the city, it's like no time has passed at all. Except for one twist that throws Riley's feelings for a loop.

This heartwarming story is all about finding yourself, the magic of friendships, and the unexpected twists of love.

Thank you to Wednesday Books, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a digital ARC of this book. Look for this on 1.23.24.

This was a super cute and fast read…had all the feels and smiles you would expect from a YA rom-com. I loved all of the characters and their interactions with each other, and their growth both individually and as a group. And it also made me want to go back to NYC, and had me majorly craving some sweets lol. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for access to this e-arc.

Tweet Cute remains one of my favorite reads of 2020, so I was ecstatic to get an ARC of The Getaway List.

Tom and Riley have been best friends since they were little. However, after four years of living miles away from Tom, Riley worries their friendship is falling apart. Further, having just graduted and unsure of what path she wants to take, she feels stuck. On a whim and faced with her mother's irritation, she takes a train to N.Y. and lands on Tom's doorstep. Riley finds that after three years apart, a lot has changed, including a newly found attraction to Tom.

Emma Lord's signature charm and sweetness shine through in this coming-of-age, young-adult romance wrapped in a love letter to New York.

I adored the romance - Tom and Riley are so cute, navigating their changing lives and feelings while spending their days exploring N.Y. However, the romance was just the cherry on top. I love how Lord navigates Riley's relationship with her mother and Riley's need to please her and be a good kid, all while trying to find her place in the world. However, I think what I loved most was the found family. This was one of the most supportive and loving found families I have read in a YA book in a long time. The female relationships were everything.

I think fans of Tweet Cute will love this!

Perfect for fans of:

Friends to Lovers
Coming of Age
New York
Female Friendships
Found Families
Bucket Lists
Heavy Dialogue

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars!

The Getaway List was like traveling to New York for a couple of hours and having fun at 18!

Thank you Netgalley for giving me an e-arc copy of this book! All thoughts and ideas are my own<3

Another fantastic YA romance about teens moving into independence by Emma Lord.
Identity, parent-young adult relationships and taking a chance on love are all thoughtfully explored.

And as always, NYC shines as the background to it all, making even those who've never lived or worked there feel connected to its energy.

Highly recommend!

Riley is now a high school graduate with no real plans. She got rejection letters from every college she applied to … even her safety schools. Although she did get in trouble a few times in high school, she has strived to be a good kid for her mom. In her first real act of rebellion, Riley decides to pack her bag and go to New York City for the weekend. Her best friend, Tom, lives there and they haven’t seen each other in ages. They also created The Getaway List while they lived apart and she thinks this is a good time to knock some of those adventures out of the way. Riley quickly learns she needs more than a weekend … she is staying for the summer!

The Getaway List is a stand-alone romance that had me fully invested after only a few chapters and I kept returning to the book and thinking about it while doing other things. This was a very clean romance that was primarily Riley and Tom not admitting they were attracted to each other. Lord made New York City seem like a place where everyone should spend a summer. I’m not condoning everyone going to NYC against their parent's wishes, but this escape read will have many readers wondering if they should.

This is a very cute YA/NA romcom with a likeable cast of characters. I enjoyed seeing the friends as they completed tasks on the getaway list.

This book very much gave me the vibes of Lorelei and Rory's relationship on Gilmore Girls circa season 6 (which isn't a bad thing, just saying)

I would likely recommend this book to fans of YA and this authors previous works. However, this has been my least favorite so far.

What a surprisingly wonderful coming of age story. Riley Larson graduates high school and decides to take a bus to NYC to visit her best friend Tom Whitz. Tom used to live and go to school with Riley in VA but moved to NYC with his mom who has gone on to become a famous screenwriter. The two have texted and talked often but haven’t seen each other in two years. A lot of that has to do with Riley’s mom keeping her from seeing him. What begins as a weekend getaway turns into a summer adventure. It means making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. The new found family friend group is great but that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own struggles. The focus is on Riley and Tom but the others are fully developed as characters. As the title suggests the pair wrote a get away list years ago and are now deciding to accomplish it together. It includes things like going to karaoke, a camping trip, making custom brownies etc.

I am new to the author and enjoyed her writing style. The characters and their emotions feel real and authentic. They talk to each other and even though they use social media everything isn’t a hashtag and slang. I also love NYC so having them explore and enjoy familiar locations added to my enjoyment. The group are all still young with only one living on his own with band mates in the city. The rest have part time jobs but money isn’t an issue. Intimacy is kept to kissing only and anything beyond that isn't mentioned. And I really like Riley’s relationship with her mom that is rocky in the beginning but there is communication and always love. I always enjoy finding good YA writers and will look for other books from the author. I would recommend this for younger teens and up.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books for the ARC and I am leaving a voluntary review.

(4 Stars)

i love how this book balances romance, friendship, family and finding yourself. emma lord's writing is funny, fresh and easily devoured. i enjoyed experiencing the getaway list with these lovable characters! you do have to lean into how unrealistic some things are, but otherwise this was a great read.

Emma Lord has done it again!! She is one of my insta-buy authors and so I was so giddy when I received an ARC of this book. Her books always feel like a warm hug and this one was no different. It was a wonderful story of finding more about yourself after high school that felt sooo relatable! Riley and Tom were so cute and now one of my favorite Emma Lord couples! I absolutely loved this book!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for both an ebook ARC and the audio of The Getaway List. I absolutely loved this one. Emma Lord gives you all the feels. It’s been years since I’ve seen NYC but it felt like another character in the story. I loved the idea of the Dear, Love Dispatch. The development of the relationships felt realistic and I enjoyed how they all unfolded on the pages. The ending felt all around good. This is probably my new favorite Emma Lord.

Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for an advanced copy!

Riley has just graduated from high school, and she is excited to take charge of her own life. Much to her mother's dismay, Riley hops on a bus the day after graduation to go see New York City, and most of all, her best friend, Tom. It's been three years since Riley and Tom have seen each other in person, and it has been hard to keep in contact. But when they are reunited, it feels like nothing has changed. Tom starts to show Riley the city, and she starts to fall in love with it and creates some lifelong friends. She wants to stay in New York, but it's a decision that might tear Riley and her mom apart. And, along the way, she starts to realize she may be in a love with Tom, which isn't part of her plan. Will Riley be able to be herself, follow her dreams, and still have all her loved ones in her life?

This was a really fun read! I have read several Emma Lord books, and I've been a fan of most of them. The friends-to-lovers trope was very well done, and there was a lot of romantic tension between Riley and Tom, which was fun to read. Though this novel is foremost a love story, it still spends plenty of time on Riley finding herself and making strong friendships. I would highly recommend to anyone looking for a romantic read that also includes great friendships.

This was such a fun new Emma Lord contemporary romance—the story of finding your way after high school, combined with navigating friendship, family, and love, was so relatable and moving. A joy!

This is not my favourite Emma Lord book. I found that it had a lot of side characters and while they were interesting they seemed to pull from the main storyline. I just didn't connect with the two romantic leads as much as I usually do in an Emma Lord book.

Aside from that, the writing was strong. And I did enjoy the characters, there was just too much side action and not enough main action for me.

3 stars

If there's one YA author I am always going to read, it's probably Emma Lord, and she does not disappoint with her upcoming release, The Getaway List.

What I love about her writing is the depth of relationships that she can build (romantic, familial, platonic), while also keeping the joy factor.

Riley and Tom's friendship is at the core of this book, their possible relationship has the right amount of tension, and the backdrop of NYC is a delight.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

"The Getaway List" expertly captures the post high school "ohmigod what do I do know" life change, with a healthy dose of romance and a side order of road trip. It goes after a number of well worn YA tropes and, in my opinion, is successful in all of them.

For highlights, I loved the main character Riley. Her denial about her feelings for her long time best friend Tom felt very real. Tom was a nicely sweet nerd counterpart. The colorful cast of side characters were lovingly endearing as well. The jaunt around the city aspect of the plot added a lot as well.

The Getaway List was graciously gifted to me by the publisher to enjoy (which anything written by Emma Lord is always top tier for me.) This book was no different. The story is about Riley, a recent high school graduate who travels to NYC to visit her childhood best friend, Tom. Over the course of the summer, they want to accomplish their “Getaway List” which is almost like a bucket list written by their younger selves. I thought the friends to lovers’ story of Riley and Tom was written perfectly and made for an all-around feel-good story. Emma also did a great job with the other character side stories. Mariella was one of my favorite characters, a woman in STEM, not afraid to take another path then what her parents had in mind for her and confident. As always, my favorite part about all of Emma’s books is how much of herself translates to her characters. Jesse as a Swiftie, Tom with his sweet tooth, the GOUDA. As someone who is a huge Emma fan, I always have fun looking for these things (or Taylor Swift lyrics) throughout the book. 5 stars!