I have been a huge fan of Rainbow Rowell since first reading Eleanor and Park so many years ago -- so I was so excited to get an early copy of this book. I absolutely loved it and instantly missed Shiloh and Cary.

It has been fifteen years since their high school graduation when Shiloh sees Cary at the wedding of their good friend Mickey. They haven't spoken in fourteen years, and it is emotionally charged for both of them. Shiloh has two young kids and is still reeling from her divorce, and Cary is in the Navy and has moved around for the past fifteen years. The book switches between present day, and moments in the past, including high school, college, and as adults.

My favorite part of this book was Shiloh and Cary -- I loved both their characters so much. While I could see their flaws, I also could see where they came from, and it made me have so much empathy for them. I loved the side characters too, I loved Mickey, and loved Junie and Gus.

I think Rainbow Rowell really nails what it's like to be a teenager and in college -- all those emotions and hormones and feelings that seem so much bigger than yourself.

I would recommend this book to anyone who can handle a little second hand embarrassment in their rom com. I couldn't put it down and the short chapters made me race through to see how it would all come together.

I continue to be a huge Rainbow Rowell fan and cannot wait to read whatever she writes next!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

Rowell writes well from the female point-of-view. This romance was fun, while being grounded in real life for the characters. I thought the exploration of a military/navy element to the relationship was interesting. At times the barriers between the two main characters were tiresome. I always enjoy when Rowell includes multi-media elements like email.

Rainbow Rowell does it again! I’ve read several of Rowells YA books in the past and was delighted when I heard they were writing an adult romance!! Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

Shiloh and Cary are friends in high school and life takes them down very different paths separating their friendship. 14 years into the future they meet up again at a wedding and try and discover is this their second chance at romance?

In summary, this book follows two people who are perfectly designed for one another but miscommunicate at every, single, turn. If I read that description I’d be immediately turned off from reading the book, but somehow, someway, Rowell found a way to hook me and keep me on the line for the whole story. Shiloh is a hyperaware, blunt single mother whose big dreams of making it out of her small town stalled years ago, and left her living with her mother and children in the same house she grew up in. Cary is a principled and stubborn marine who fled said town for the ocean, but has never forgotten about the girl who occupied his everyday growing up, and never left his mind afterwards.

Both Cary and Shiloh are imperfect creatures who self-sabotage and overthink, but reading about them falling apart, then slowly stitching back together was addictive. I thought about this book when I wasn’t reading it, and when I opened it up I was fully immersed in rooting for them to come clean and be together. The injection of flashbacks from their shared youth made me long for them to set their prides and protectiveness aside in the present. I do wish we saw a little more of their times at university/marine boot camp to flesh out the brief time they did get their act together. This book was full of frustration, but Rowell’s writing and complex characters made it fly by in a blink.

I have been a huge fan of Rainbow Rowell for years and was really excited to see her release an adult romance!

Rainbow Rowell is a master of writing characters. While I often didn’t really understand their motivations, the author does a wonderful job detailing who Cary and Shiloh are. They were definitely flawed and at some points Shiloh annoyed me but I appreciated that they felt like real people.

This book is not your typical romance but rather a book about people and character development. Yes there is a romance in it, but I wouldn’t go in expecting it to be a romance or you might be disappointed.

The pace of this book was a little slow for me but it also didn’t take me a long time to get through it. I think most people will find it to be a slow burn. It alternates between present day and when Shiloh and Cary were in high school. I loved the glimpses back at their friendship, it gave a good context for where they were now in life.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the arc. 4.5 rounded up

I will start off by saying that I am a fan of Rainbow Rowell. There is something about her writing style and characters that appeals to me immensely. I think she is very good at writing awkward, wallflower-y characters, and deep relationships between her characters and this book is no exception. Slow Dance tells the story of Shiloh and Cary, best friends from high school who drifted apart after Cary joined the Navy and Shiloh got married and had two kids. They reconnect at their friend's wedding in Omaha to find all their old feelings flare up again. The story is told in alternating timelines with some chapters being set in the present and others set in the past, exploring their friendship in high school and the years right after graduating.

I will say that I found the Shiloh character of the past to be very obnoxious. She was always poking and prodding at Cary and pulling his hair, it felt like she was in elementary school with a crush. She was also very stubborn about her worldviews that were obviously very narrow because she was in high school, which while annoying is very realistic. It was just sort of difficult to see what exactly Cary would have liked about Shiloh when they were younger. That being said, Shiloh grew up a bit, so her character was much better in the present chapters. There was also the miscommunication trope in play, but it was in situations where it was so obvious that the characters had feelings for each other that you just have to roll your eyes. All that being said, I did enjoy the characters and their story, and of course I enjoyed the writing. This is a good one for people who are interested in second chance romances. It will also appeal to adult readers who enjoyed Rowell's earlier Eleanor & Park.

I did not finish this one. I was frustrated that the characters were having the same conversations/issues over and over again, just in different setting. Maybe I’ll try it again at some point!

Rainbow Rowell is a master at making you know characters immediately, but something about these two took a little longer to click. The book has a compelling story of two friends who just could never make it work, and shows how real life--adult life-- is hard, demoralizing, and sometimes seems an impossible obstacle to romance. That being said, it just felt like too much was happening, and yet not enough. I didn't particularly care about either of these characters as deeply as Rowell's usual protagonists. Not quite enough pining, too much middle aged angst!

I adore everything I’ve read by this author, and Slow Dance, like Rowell’s other short stories and novels, is also compulsively readable. She’s so adept at throwing an arm around the reader and filling them in on everything—setting, characters, backstory—with a direct narration coupled with an intimate inner dialogue that’s hard to believe isn’t in the first person. While the characters in this particular book didn’t resonate with me as much as those in some of her other writing, they are still endearing and quirky and frustrating and complex and I enjoyed getting to know them.

I love Rainbow Rowell and the way she wrote Shiloh was so lovely. I appreciated how much the characters grew and I love the sippets into their past to see how they have evolved. This was a dream to read.

Shiloh and Cary were best friends in high school. The kind of will they won’t they kind of friends that makes it hard to find someone as an adult. 14 years 2 children and a Navy career later they run into each other and the feels are still there. This is a slow burn that switches back a forth between the teenage timeline and the adult in a way that lays out the relationship. Sweet vintage Rainbow Rowell.

✔️ Childhood friends to lovers
✔️ Second Chance
✔️ Then and Now
✔️ Epistolary

This book packed a punch. I was not ready for how it would break my heart and then propel me to stratospheric swoon.

It's told in a non-linear fashion and was cleverly done as even the past was not chronological. Parts are unveiled to most effectively support (or devastate) the present storyline.

This book felt so real; the ways where Cary and Shiloh inadvertently hurt each other and (mostly incorrectly) interpret and react to each other's actions was so painful but also those moments held so much truth.

You know I love domestic scenes and those were among my fave here - all the moments where Shiloh and Cary took care of each other both in past and present. I especially loved their emails back and forth and it made me remember emails between me and my husband back in the day.

Definitely pick this one up! 5⭐️

Steam 🔥
Banter 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️
Swoon 💕💕💕💕💕

This book was terribly lukewarm.

I struggled to get through this, on multiple occasions only reading a chapter at a time before I would put it down. I hated the short chapters, most of the background scenes didn’t add to the story at all, and the main characters might be my least favorite of the whole year.

I enjoyed some of the angst but we would get it for maybe two seconds before they would just pretend like it never happened. I felt like the main characters didn’t like each other for the first half and then switched with no warning into being in love?

The Simon snow books are some of my favorite of all time but this was just not for me and I’m my opinion not very well written.

I admire Rainbow Rowell’s ability to write in several genres, but I only read her adult novels so it’s been years since I read something by her. Slow Dance is set in Omaha, the city where Ms. Rowell and I live, so I highly anticipated reading it. Rebecca Lowman did a fine job of narrating the audiobook.

While in high school, Shiloh, Cary, and Mikey were close platonic friends. Shiloh and Cary were inseparable and many assumed their relationship was more than friendship. They made big plans for their futures and vowed to keep in touch, but as often happens, plans change and relationships fade. Fourteen years after high school graduation, Shiloh and Cary both attend Mikey’s wedding. Shiloh’s divorced and has two young children. Cary lives around the world as a Naval officer. Can they renew their friendship? Could it become more?

Told in dual timeline, the past (high school and post-high school years) segments are shared in non-chronological order which was sometimes a bit confusing. I wouldn’t have enjoyed a book with only the ‘past’ segments, but they were interesting to provide more context to the characters in ‘current’ time.

The story felt deeply rooted in its time and place, especially since I loved the Omaha references throughout. I related to Cary’s challenges with his mom and family members and also enjoyed the antics of Shiloh’s son and daughter. Shiloh isn’t the most likeable character, and there’s so much angst between her and Cary, but I wished good things for both of them by the novel’s end.

Thank you to William Morrow and HarperAudio for the review copies of this novel which could provide many topics for book clubs to discuss.

I always love everything Rainbow Rowell writes and this book was no exception. I was obsessed during every minute of reading this book. The characters are so perfectly imperfect that you can't help but root for them the whole time. I love how this book displayed the idea that some people need more than one or two tries to get together, some need a TON of tries but that doesn't mean that it's not meant to be. I loved the concept and the characters and the story so much. I don't normally gravitate towards books about parents and their kids but I LOVED watching Shiloh parent in this book, I thought it was such a great addition. I also thought Cary's Navy background was very interesting since I know so little about the Navy. Shiloh reminded me of Jo from Little Women a lot in this book. She gave off that same persona of headstrong to a fault on the outside but still sensitive and caring on the inside. The only part of this book that I truly could not stand was the fashion choices made. I get that it was 2006, and also that all the flashbacks were from when they were in high school, but I truly could have done without the dresses/skirts over jeans trend. That isn't something that I felt the need to remember so vividly. That was literally the only part of the book that I was like "hard no" about, everything else was good or great. I thought it was really cute how the book started with a wedding and ended with a wedding in the same reception hall. I thought that was a really cute touch, felt very full circle. I also loved the moments at the beginning of the book with Shiloh looking for Cary at Mikey's wedding while also trying not to look for him but not really being able to help it. I loved all of the referring back that this book had to moments when they were younger, or at the end of the book referring back to moments at the beginning. It felt very genuine and real throughout. There were so many quotes and lines and moments that I highlighted because I loved it all so much. I can't get over the fact that the characters and their story was so likeably imperfect that the vibe just worked so so well. I hated Ryan so much. I hated him at the beginning and then the more you find out about him the more I hate him as the book progresses. BUT I loved Mikey. I felt like he brought some much needed humor and I loved reading the scenes with him in present day and in the past. I felt like the Before scenes at the beginning of the book felt too heavily weighted, especially because all I cared about in that moment was understanding the dynamic of Cary and Shiloh NOW but I like how the Before scenes kind of trickled out before you know it, they were mostly just helpful for some much needed context. I loved the scene where they were driving around town with Lois and the kids in the car, it was very cute. I also loved all the emails that Cary and Shiloh sent back and forth when he was at sea. Very Attachments of them. I felt like when compared to Rainbow Rowell's other books this book most closely resembled Landline and Attachments, because those are her other adult novels. I really liked this book but I didn't connect with it in the same way that I did Fangirl and Carry On. But it was still a 10/10 read nonetheless.

A friends to lovers romance for Shiloh and Cary. Will now be their chance to be together? A fab read.

Rainbow Rowell is such a reliable author for me - I enjoy her stories, her characters, her settings, pretty much everything about her books. But they each feel unique and special, which was exactly what Slow Dance was. It a (sort of) second chance romance, (sort of) friends to lovers romcom, but it’s also a nostalgic story about high school friendships (those ones that are the middle of the pack types - not the popular kids, not the outcasts, but the ones that were just their weird selves with their friends who saw and loved them).

I usually read romcoms and romances for the quick, lighthearted nature of them, but this was the rare book in the genre that I wanted to linger with. I enjoyed my time with Cary and Shiloh (and Mickey and the rest of the cast of characters) and wanted to see how things would turn out for them. The best part of the book is how beautifully broken and complicated and frustrating these central relationships are while also being full of love and humor and commitment and compassion.

I would recommend this one wholeheartedly!

This is a good book. The two main characters are Shiloh and Cary. They know each other for all their lives. They lived just down the street from each other. They were best friends all through school. Once they graduated they took different paths. Shiloh went to college and Cary joined the Navy. They saw each other when Cary had leave. Shiloh married someone and had 2 kids and got divorced. They finally meet back up when Cary came home on family emergency because his Mom was ill. They meet back up and fell in love.

There were things I loved about this, and some things that didn't ring true for me. There was some extra-quirkiness with the characters that just didn't feel natural at times, but overall I was rooting for Shiloh and Cary the entire book. Be prepared for a lot of quick-witted dialogue, but also some conversations/conflicts that literally lasted the entire book (There were a few times where I was ready to move on to a new discussion). 3.5 stars overall.

And thanks again to Netgalley for the advanced copy!

I really enjoyed this book! It highlighted what it's like to be lower class without centering the whole story about that. It was a great will-they/won't-they, friends-to-lovers romance, and I really felt like the main characters were meant to be together.