Every time I thought this book was starting to get boring, it would pull me back in, until finally the last third felt like pure comfort (that was when all the teenage miscommunication flashbacks finally let up).

Such a beautiful romance. Both characters were equally frustrating and their story from friendship to love was as well, but it was impossible not to root for Cary and Shiloh. The author paints a beautiful portrait of Omaha - a place I called home for a long time. Rowell does a brilliant job from characters, to setting, to plot.

Shiloh and Cary were best friends in high school supporting each other and their friend Mikey through the trials and anxieties of adolescence. They all promised to keep their friendship alive, but as life took them in different directions - they grew apart.

14 years later, Shiloh and Cary are attending Mikey's wedding and she reconnects with Cary. After a marriage, divorce, two kids, and living back in her childhood home with her mother, and how their relationship disconnection, Shiloh wonders if Cary will even want to talk with her. Cary is in the Navy and trying to still navigate complicated family dynamics from afar.

As Cary and Shiloh grapple with the challenges of adulthood, will they be able to reconnect and find a way forward in their new realities?

I could NOT put this book down and read it 3 days it was SO GOOD! Thank you netgalley for providing me an advance copy of the ebook - it was a delight to read.

Sweet novel about a misfit who runs into her high school best friend. Shiloah and Carey are obviously meant for each other but they definitely take the long road to get there.

While I wanted to love this, and did in fact like Slow Dance, it just failed to hit the mark on a couple of levels for me. First off it was a slow dance, a very long and slow dance. You knew that Cary and Shiloh would probably figure things out between them but man it took a long time. It was painful at times. The writing style was very simplistic. So much so, that I stopped reading and double checked that it was not a YA book. It is not. The love scenes were a little too steamy and graphic for me. There was this weird fascination with crooked bottom teeth that borderline grossed me out. I would give this a solid 3.5.
Thank you for allowing me to read the ARC of Slow Dance in exchange for my honest review.

Synopsis in a sentence (or two):
Usually, I try to summarize the Goodreads synopsis in my own words, but in this case, the book cover does it perfectly.

“Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.”

Pacing/Storyline:
Slow Dance starts with a snapshot of a nervous, humble MC named Shiloh. She’s finished getting ready for her friend’s wedding and waiting for her ex to pick up the kids so she can go. Rowell quickly allows the reader to connect with the very loveable main character through this simple setup. Like so many others in the book, this moment made me feel as if I was privy to a life that perhaps I wasn’t supposed to see.

The story continues with short chapters and a dual timeline that help reveal Shiloh’s current life and adolescent years in a tougher area of Omaha, Nebraska. Shiloh’s best friends, Mikey and Cary, provide stability for each other in their teenage years. In the present timeline, Shiloh is managing her life as a single mother of two young children while beginning to reconnect with Mikey and Cary.

Because this story is so character-focused, it could be considered a slow burn. Still, it’s a story I wanted to pick back up nearly every time I put it down. I found Shiloh’s story of motherhood so engaging. Cary and Shiloh face their own adversities, and I loved watching them overcome these challenges. The plot is heavy on the relationship aspect of the story, so I recommend it to lovers of romance.

Recommended to readers who love:
📚 Dual timelines and character study romances
📚John Green, Gabrielle Zevin, Jenny Han
📚redemption romances

Rating: 4.5

Disclosure:
Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the Digital Review Copy of Slow Dance. All opinions are my own.

Reviews will be posted on @inkedupmargins blog and IG closer to publication

I spent a lot of the reading of this book frustrated by all of the almosts and might have beens. I loved the rawness of the characters, no Hallmark romance here. (There is a time and place for Hallmark romance, no judgment). Loved the supporting cast so fervently.

Shiloh and Cary never got together in high school, but everyone figured they did. Then, years later at their high school trio's third member's second wedding, they meet up again...and maybe this time?

I feel like so many people have that one guy (or girl) from high school (or college) they daydreamed about spending their lives with, and this book will make you think about that person a lot while reading it. In a good way, I promise! This book hits all of your nostalgia with a bulls-eye. Cary joined the navy, and Shiloh married her college boyfriend (who apparently wasn't just her boyfriend) and had a couple of kids and ended up back in her hometown living with her mother when she ended up divorced. It was just too easy for these two star crossed lovers to fall out of touch, with Cary all over the world and Shiloh in the last place she figured Cary wanted to be--but then fate steps in with a wedding and a mom who needs a bit more help than Cary's siblings let onto.

I really enjoyed this book--it made me happy, it made me cry, it made me super frustrated at Cary and Shiloh (like any good romance should), and it really made me remember and realize exactly why things would not have worked out with that guy from high school (who also moved far far away). Rainbow Rowell somehow, every time, just gets right into your heart and rips it apart and then painstakingly puts it back together for you.

This was a beautiful, well, slow dance of a book...the years-long yearning of two people as they danced around each other, each believing they had no right to reach out for what they wanted. It was a somewhat tragic story, even in amongst the joy, and at times difficult to watch Cary and Shiloh defeat themselves time and again. But it was achingly realistic, and somewhat nostalgic for me to read, having also come of age in the 90s/2000s. I feel as if pieces of this book will come back to me, bittersweetly, from time to time over the next several years. It's not a story I'll soon forget. The characters who danced alongside the two mains were also unforgettable; you had to just love Mikey. And Tom. And the mothers, both of whom tried to hard to parent to the best of their abilities and yet still made mistakes because, well, parenting! But it was really interesting to see the generational influence as it was passed down, in both Cary's and Shiloh's families. I will definitely recommend this story, with the caveat that it's not a romance as much as it is a story that feels, ultimately, just REAL.

Slow Dance is one that I have been excited to dive into because I am not fully familiar with Rainbow Rowell’s adult works and it did not disappoint. This novel is about two best friends, Shiloh and Carey, who reunite at a mutual friend’s wedding after having been no contact for years. Told between altering timelines, we watch Shiloh and Carey be inseparable in their teen years to rekindling their friendship and love they cannot deny in their adult years.

One thing this novel did incredibly well was the characters. Reading character based novels can be a hit or miss for me, but Rainbow Rowell does it SO WELL. I felt so connected to both of them and the character development was there. Sometimes it can feel so stuck when it is mostly a character driven book, but the flashbacks aided in showcasing how different but the same Carey and Shiloh are. Their dialogue and interactions with one another were just perfect and made me fall more in love with them each time. While some of their choices had me screaming at the book and miscommunication was extremely present, I just loved how honest and raw these characters felt. You could feel all of their emotions and they were just so human and real. They got hot headed, they had empathy, they had priorities, and desires. They were very well developed.

With that said, there were some odd points in the book that were very slow and did not seem to have much importance. Meanwhile, the ending was so incredibly rushed and it was all the bits I wanted to see. I think the end in general was already going by way too fast, but pairing that with how slow the rest of the book is, it is extremely prominent. It truly makes it feel like the author needed to get this book in or didn’t know how to flush out the rest of these characters, which was disappointing. We develop this emotional connection to Shiloh and Carey that is so real and to have it rushed like that makes it feel unfinished.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you love an extreme slow burn, friends to lovers set in 1990s- early 2000s Omaha, and messy and real characters, this one is for you. I truly fell in love slowly with these characters.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and William Morrow for a copy of this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fittingly, this is a very slow book. I found myself so frustrated with the characters -- just talk! -- and then so tickled when they finally did start talking. This romance is awkward and real, so much so that I wasn't always enjoying the reading experience, though I was curious how Rowell would bring the HEA about.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

Let's just say that I started this book in the evening, only to read a little bit, and ended up reading half the book all in one go! It's been awhile since I read a book from Rainbow Rowell and it was like catching up with an old friend. Fangirl is one of my favorites and I was excited to get wrapped up in an adorable romance and fall in love with completely flawed, awkward, and relatable characters!

Slow Dance jumps between many moments in the relationship between Shiloh and her high school best friend, Cary. They haven't spoken to each other in 14 years and they reunite at their mutual friend's wedding. You learn about their friendship in high school and the different points in time they've run into each other since and how it's affected their present relationship. It's a lot of repressed feelings and not knowing how to express them while also keeping yourself from getting hurt and it's heart wrenching/heart warming at the same time as they go through these different feelings together.

I loved this book! You know that feeling when you think about stupid things you've done in the past and wonder why you acted like that? That's this book in a nutshell, I loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book was a cute real world romantic story. Both characters were so real in their insecurities and ambitions, while also showing the importance of being able to step out of their comfort zone. I loved that there was no third act breakup and the supporting flashbacks helped to truly understand the friendship these two share. It was a bit slow at times but was good for an uplifting romantic read.

I'm a big fan of Rainbow Rowell, so I was excited when I learned she had a new adult romance coming out ... and absolutely thrilled to be able to read it early.

Slow Dance alternates perspectives between Shiloh, a 33-year-old single mom going through a messy divorce, and her high school best friend Cary, who she hasn't seen since he joined the Navy 14 years ago. The two reunite at the wedding of a mutual friend, which is where the story begins. While it takes place over the next year, there are also flashbacks to various pivotal points of their relationship as teenagers. The flashbacks aren't chronological, which was a little jarring at first, but it soon becomes clear why they are revealed in the order they are, and I appreciate the decision.

This is a heartwarming story of two broken adults who find their way back to each other after years of heartbreak, traumas, misunderstandings, and miscommunications. Shiloh and Cary are well-written, complex characters with rich backstories and visible growth and development. It took me a little while to like Shiloh and care about her and her happiness, but Rowell got me there and eventually, I couldn't put Slow Dance down because I had to find out what happened.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for a complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.

This was an interesting book, because it takes multiple popular tropes (rekindled romance, second chance at love, and also friends to lovers) and mixes them into a singular novel with multiple timelines. Sounds like it would be a total hodgepodge, but it somehow works! My singular complaint would be that it dragged on a little much with the back and forth between the main characters but it was overall a nice work of romantic fiction and also somewhat of a women's fiction novel.

Shiloh and Cary were best friends growing up in Omaha. Mikey was also part of the threesome and they spent a lot of time together growing up.
The story is about Shiloh and Cary finally getting together after years apart. Cary is in ROTC and has plans to join the Navy after high school. Shiloh heads off to college and eventually marries Ryan and has two children. The meet back up after fourteen years at Mikey's wedding. Cary has always loved Shiloh and she pushed him away while she was in college. This story is a Shiloh living back at her mother's house with her two kids and Cary coming home for Mikey's wedding with 5 years left until he can retire from the Navy. We learn about their younger years by the author as before and after meeting up again. I can say for me the book just went back and forth in timeframes way too much and Shiloh defiantly didn't have her act together at all. Cary was way too nice to her.

A perfect fit for readers who adore heartfelt, emotional, and hopeful stories about second chances at love, friendship, and self-discovery, with a strong focus on the complexities of relationships and the power of nostalgia.

I have not read a Rainbow Rowell book since reading Elenor and Park in high school and I had forgetten how I enjoy their books. Slow Dance was very sweet and brought out of the nostalgia of Rowells books. But I think I may have out grown their books now that I am a fully grown adult. The writing is still very good and characters well developed but I found myself not caring for the story as much and lost interest half way through which is why it took me longer than usual to get through this book.

A new Rainbow Rowell book is a banner occasion - I should have waited, I should have taken more time to savor this one, because I know it will be a while until I have another book from Rainbow. But I'm not perfect, and so I gulped this down in 24 hours, neglecting some things I needed to do in favor of spending time in Omaha with Shiloh and Cary, two of Rainbow's most perfect imperfect characters.

Rainbow Rowell has long been a favorite author and I was so excited to have the opportunity to read Slow Dance early. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced digital review copy.

Slow Dance was everything that I've come to expect from Rainbow Rowell and more. I love her use of dialogue. This is one not to be missed.