Rainbow Rowell is often the author I turn to if I want a comfort read. This is not to say these books are always happy and lighthearted; to the contrary, she writes relatable characters is relatable situations, which can sometimes be quite dark and tough. Slow Dance was a perfect example of this. On one hand, it was a light romance, and on another, it was a deeply toughing journey of acceptance, healing, and moving on even when life did not go its expected route. As someone approximately the age of the protagonist(s), there were some moments that felt almost too poignant to me, and I really enjoyed seeing how the characters reacted.

Initially I was a little concerned if I'd get confused due to the manner in which Rowell jumps around the timeline, but she masterfully gives enough indicators and story beats to smoothly and satisfyingly piece together the timeline and get the full magnitude of the characters' pasts and their effects on the present. While the overall plot was not very memorable, I enjoyed my time with Slow Dance and will be recommending it to some friends. Thanks again for access to this ARC!

While several have listed this on their best books of 2024 lists, I struggled with it. I actually put it down and have not finished it, but I do intend to give it another chance soon. I found it dry and I didn't really connect with the characters, but maybe on the second try I will get the hype about it.

Thank you for the opportunity to review this advanced reader's edition. Unfortunately, I will not be able to give it the time required to write a thorough review and will be unable to read it for this purpose.

This book is a very sweet, slow burn. Don’t expect to read hot and heavy romance, but instead a quiet love that blossoms years after the protagonists intended it to.

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for early access to this book in exchange for an honest review.

I haven't read many Rainbow Rowell books but the ones I have red I have loved. This one is no different.

I really enjoyed the back and fourth from the past and the present in this book. The love journey or main characters went on when they were younger and then again when they were older. I also really enjoyed how flawed our main characters are in their own ways personal and with others.

I really enjoyed the MMC the most, he is definitely a new book boyfriend of mine.

Thank you netgalley for a copy of this book to read and review.

Thank you so much @WilliamMorrowBooks for giving me this ARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased review (Release Date | 30 July 2024)

SYNOPSIS | Shiloh + Cary were best friends throughout high school, but they didn't connect in a romantic way until college. Their relationship ended badly and they reconnect again 14 years later at their best friend Mikey's wedding where Shiloh is recently divorced and Cary is still in the Navy.

WHAT I LIKED:
- Junie + Gus (the kids) were beyond delightful if not slightly precocious
- short chapters helped push this slow burn romance along
- kind of slice of life vibes with authentic relationship issues

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:
- fraught with miscommunication
- the characters overanalysing every situation yet misunderstanding the other persons intentions
- Shiloh + Cary's inability to have a meaningful conversation for the majority of this story
- as the reader I didn't get to experience their growth from teenager to adult (Shiloh especially still felt pretty immature as a 30 year old)

This book's exploration of friends-to-lovers relationships and second chance romance, paired with its reflective and emotional tone, will resonate with readers that enjoy humorous and heartbreaking love stories. As you follow Shiloh and Cary's journey from inseparable teens to far-flung adulthoods, you'll be swept up in this hopeful romance and invested in their relationship. The story is a relatable portrayal of a single mother navigating love, loss, and self-discovery.

Rainbow Rowell delivers again - a book filled with relatable feelings, thoughts, and emotions on messing it up, but somehow muddling forward until it becomes right.

Shiloh and Cary were always close, so close their fellow high school students never were really sure if they were a "thing" or not. Everyone assumed they were, or would eventually be so the true evolution of their relationship was never really clear. Shiloh married another, and now divorced with two kids is wondering what happened when she meets Cary again at a mutual friend's wedding.

The reader will always find connections in Rowell's books: either personal connections or characters who are so like others in their world. Her books offers so many opportunities to view and think of things from another perspective based on similar life events. Pick this up when you are in a contemplative mood!

I apologize for being so late with this review. Once I started reading I couldn't stop. Shiloh and Cary's inability to communicate made me fearful that the ending would be sad or tragic, which isn't what I normally go for when choosing books. But their story is compelling and kept pulling me through to the happy ending. Thank you for allowing me access to this story.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this epic love story. It spans what seems to be a lifetime of Cary and Shiloh being best friends, loving one another, but never quite realizing that their love is reciprocated. They meet when they’re only 13 and don’t acknowledge their feelings for one another to one another for 20 years! At times, it felt like these two might never get their act together, but I enjoyed the writing and the story itself was quite engaging.

Early on, I was delighted by a section where Shiloh is arguing with her ex-husband Ryan. The dialogue is pretty straightforward until Shiloh says something and then: “And then he said— It didn’t really matter what he said after that.” I loved that, just cutting to the chase and admitting that whatever he had to say was irrelevant because he’d spend the next 15 years of co-parenting saying the same kinds of things over and over, and driving Shiloh nuts.

Shiloh seems to have ASD, and Cary seems to be the one person who knows and understands her better than anyone else. They’ve been separated from one another for a long time for reasons the reader will learn about later on, and Shiloh wants to look perfect for the wedding of a mutual friend, Mikey. She doesn’t admit it, but she hopes to see Cary. Meanwhile, Shiloh “wanted to be the heroine of a John Hughes movie. Or maybe a John Waters movie.” There’s a significant difference between the two; this was just one example of the inner struggle Shiloh experiences regularly.

Shiloh is a single parent living with her mother. The story jumps back and forth in time from present-day to “before.” As teenagers, Cary asks Shiloh to babysit for his young niece because he needs to leave for work and no one else is home to look after her. When her mother offers to help, Shiloh cautions her not to give the baby a bagel because Cary only mentioned she could eat Cheerios. Her mother responds, “Oh, that’s right, Shiloh—you had a dozen siblings once, but I killed them all with bagels.” This made me crack up.

Over the years, Shiloh and Cary have flirted with having a more serious relationship, and it soon becomes apparent to the reader that they love one another and belong together. But both have allowed fear to keep them from saying what they really want. At one point, while kissing Cary, the narrator says, “If she emptied her head in his lap, all that would fall out was his name.” Meanwhile, to Cary, “Shiloh was a light in the distance. She was an ache he’d been feeling since he was thirteen. An itch. She was a finger hooked into every torn seam, tugging—and Cary was made of torn seams. Just a poorly stitched human being. He’d only known how to want Shiloh, never how to have her.”

Their relationship is sweet, and legendary, and heartbreaking because both are so insecure and feel they’re not worthy of the other. And both fear losing the other as a friend if they cross the line into romance. But it’s so obvious that’s where they should be, and Mikey can see it clearly, and occasionally reminds Cary.

Shiloh’s ASD is demonstrated in many ways—her constant need to touch Cary, her hesitancy to allow herself to experience deep feelings, and her inability to maintain eye contact being just a few. She’s really a lot, but Cary truly gets her, and he gently pushes her to trust him and feel the big feelings that scare her. And when she thinks about her first marriage to Ryan, she has an epiphany. “She’d thought, with Ryan, that she was lucky to have someone who didn’t need to look in her eyes. She’d realized too late that he couldn’t.”

One of the things I found so refreshing about this story is the way Cary and Shiloh are each described as being rather plain, maybe even funny-looking. However, because their feelings are so strong, they don’t see each other that way. Even though they can see the true appearance of the other, in their heads, it’s those very idiosyncrasies that cause them to find the other so endearing. The reader isn’t left thinking either are the most attractive people you’ll ever see, as so many romances present their characters. Instead, the reader sees them as just regular, not particularly physically attractive people, who are wildly attracted to one another. It’s so much more real than a typical romance in which the MCs are portrayed as almost god-like.

I highly recommend this book. It’s unique and it’s memorable. The characters are so realistic, and their lives are relatable. They’re messy and far from perfect, but they’re perfect for one another. I had a happy feeling when they found their happily-ever-after because I saw how much they struggled to get there, and I understood them all too well. I’m looking forward to reading more from this new-to-me author.

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

I was hoping to love this but it was only okay. I enjoyed the main character but the pacing felt very slow. It also seemed as though we didn’t get enough information about the pair to root for them to reconnect.

I featured this book in a new release video prior to publication and was very excited to read a new book by THE Rainbow Rowell!! I love a love story revolving around a huge time jump, and knowing this author's writing, it promises beautiful writing, lots of yearning, and a little [or a lot] of wit. Will update when final review posts, but I'm expecting 5 stars!

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell is a story about two high school best friends, Shiloh and Cary. They were the couple that everyone thought would end up together forever. But that wasn't meant to be. Cary joined the Navy and Shiloh went off to college and the two haven't spoken in 15 years. But now the former it couple of high school reconnects at a mutual friends wedding. Told in alternating past and present timelines, Slow Dance is a slow burn. This is my first Rowell novel and I wasn't sure what to expect, but I found that I didn't connect with any character and wasn't even interested in whether or not they got back together. I really hate miscommunication between love interests and this was a prominant part of the story. Overall, this one was a miss for me but does have a lot of high ratings and good reviews, so I encourage you to give it a try.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Shiloh and Cary were best friends as teens in Omaha, both desperate to get out of their town and start their real lives. When Shiloh left for college, Cary joined the Navy. Now in their thirties, the two haven’t seen each other in years. When a high school friend invites Shiloh to his wedding, she’s less than thrilled, but the possibility (and worry) about seeing Cary again makes her decide to go - and confront the fact that she might have really loved him.

Readers who love slow-burn and angst will not want this one to end. They will want to stretch out their time with Rowell’s characters and her wonderful, realistic world-building. No one does longing the way Rowell does, and that’s on full display here, as readers flip back and forth in time between when Carey and Shiloh were in high school and when they are in their thirties. Rowell’s characters are funny and self-deprecating and misanthropic and feel so real and so lived in that it's impossible to not feel like you know these people in real life. The stakes feel so much realer and plausible than what is often seen in romance novels. Richly drawn, emotionally resonant, and an utter delight of a novel. Highly recommended - fans of Rowell's adult novels should not miss this one.

I enjoyed Rowell’s other adult romances, Attachments and Landline, but Slow Dance is easily my least favorite of the three. Slow is right there in the title, and boy, is it. It takes forever for this story to get going, and it’s not helped by the typically boring flashbacks on Shiloh and Cary’s teenage years. While it helps to build a picture of their relationship–and how very long it’s been going on, both platonically and romantically–nothing interesting ever happens there.

There are points when the current timeline is little better. For readers looking for a depressingly realistic look at the difficulties of adult relationships, this is the book for you. There’s drama on multiple levels: family, divorce, single mom, aging parent, long distance, and it’s all drearily apt to real life. There are always a thousand reasons why a relationship won’t work in the real world, and Shiloh goes through all of them multiple times. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more reluctant leading lady in a romance. Cary is steadfast and solid but bad at communicating his feelings, which is part of the reason this romance takes literal decades. They’re a good balance for each other, however, and the reader is able to see all the reasons the relationship will work long before the characters do.

In general, I adore Rowell’s writing voice, and that was pretty much the only thing that kept me going here. That also isn’t her best though. It’s a very dialogue-heavy book, including one chapter of literally nothing but, which felt extremely sloppy. While I was mostly glad to be done with it, I was happy with how things turned out for the characters. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at William Morrow.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

I think I would have really struggled to get into this story if I were trying to eyeball read it. It jumps all over the place between "before" and now and the before is not told in chronological order. It feels like the story is very disjointed at the beginning, but by the end of the story it becomes apparent why it was told this way and ended up being really beautiful.

This story is a great depiction of right person wrong time. It seems Shiloh and Cary have a difficult time speaking to each other about their feelings and just assume that the other person knows how they feel (spoiler alert THEY DO NOT). There was one point where Cary said something and my jaw dropped and remained frozen because I couldn't believe what he had said!

Overall really enjoyed this listen and will be checking out more from this author soon.

Thank you so much to the publisher for a gifted ARC. All thoughts are my own.

Rainbow is a huge author but this is my first book from them. THIS is what romance is. I loved how realistic the characters felt and the storyline was touching and funny and heartwarming.

Slow Dance was the perfect description, not only for the book but also for how I read it. Slowly. It is very character driven, low plot. Which I don’t mind. So I don’t have specific issues with it to give it 3 stars. But it just felt real. Not the unrealistic beautiful people falling over each other. Or the unrealistic infuriating misunderstandings. Just real. Shiloh infuriated me often but in a way I have know girls to be. I could have done without the unnecessary LGBTQ situations thrown in that added nothing. But much of the book felt that way—things mentioned that may not have had a point in the story other than to show reality every day life of a real type person.

Romance is not my usual preferred genre; however, I enjoyed this story. It was a little spicy which was nice! It also took me down memory lane several times. Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Publishers for the ARC opportunity.