Holy-bejezzz, I was not prepared! I requested an e-ARC of this book because (even though I don’t tend to gravitate to YA) I looooved the Carry On series. When I saw that Rainbow Rowell wrote a contemporary romance I was all about it. Simply put this is a childhood friends to lovers, 2nd chance romance. But it is truly so much more than that.

WHAT I LOVED MOST:
The characters! Every. Single. One. Of course, Shiloh and Cary are my favorite. They had their quirks, their perspectives, and clear voices. Shout out to Mikey and Lois (who had so great quips!)

The timing and flow. The books bounces from current times, to before times, but they don’t follow each other chronologically. I had no trouble following the story through the path RR led me down, and it made it that much more enjoyable.

REAL life stuff - kids, divorce, caregiving, family drama, military - It was all so real and deep. Plus, they ate Taco Bell… there is nothing more relatable to me!

FAVORITE QUOTES:
“I asked you to dance— you’re not a wallflower.” She held up a finger. “I’m an intentional wallflower. I choose this adventure.”

“She liked kissing, but it was just so . . . in your face. Kissing was like eye contact, but worse. Kissing was carnal eye contact.”

“She was softer, after. She’d gotten what she wanted, and she hadn’t decided what she wanted next. This was Shiloh in a rare moment— without an agenda.”

“All her self-discipline came unraveled. All of her anchors lifted out of the ground. She held him too tight. She kissed him excessively. She told him she loved him, again and again.”

“She almost wore heels . . . but something about heels would make this feel like a date. She decided that eyeliner was platonic.”

I seriously highlighted half of this book. Places that made me laugh, cry, squeal, google things… I recommend this book 1000000 times over.

Thank you Rainbow Rowell and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review. I just purchased the paperback for an inevitable book snuggle and re-read.

Rainbow Rowell is one of my favorite authors, but this one wasn’t for me. Personally, I am not a huge fan of spicier romances so maybe it’s just me, but I wasn’t feeling very invested in the romance between Shiloh and Carey. I didn’t necessarily dislike the main characters, but sometimes found them to be somewhat irritating. As always, Rowell’s writing is very good! Fans of adult romance may still enjoy this book, this one just wasn’t a favorite for me.

4.25 stars

I enjoy Rainbow Rowell's realistic fiction because I think she gets that hazy space of teenage friendship on the cusp of a relationship so well. This one has a 90s wedding song list in the early part of the novel that will take you back as a younger GenXer or an elderly millennial to those quintessential songs that defined your teen years, and you'll always remember the lyrics.

Shiloh and Cary (male) were part of a friendship triad with Mikey in high school. Many years later, Mikey is getting remarried, and both Shiloh and Cary come to the wedding. There they reconnect after not seeing each other in many years.

The author creates vibrant vignettes with Shiloh and Cary in high school, college, and present day. We learn about both Shiloh and Cary's family dynamics. I loved learning about these characters as both high schoolers and adults. While I expected the high school scenes to have a YA feel, they really didn't, which I appreciated.

This second chance romance definitely has an appeal. I will give three cautions: 1. It is a long book (but reads fast). 2. This will appeal more to character-driven readers. 3. It has a quieter third act than I expected.

I won't forget the characters of Shiloh and Cary for a long time.

This story put me through the emotional ringer let me tell you what. Wow.
I have always been a fan of Rainbow Rowell, and when I got this ARC I was so so excited I yelped!?!?!?

The crackling intensity between Shiloh and Cary at all stages was palpable and I loved the duality of the timeline in this story and that you got to jump all around between past and present and see things when you needed to at different points in the story and how they relate to what is happening with Shiloh and Cary through the present time. It was equal parts heartwarming and heartaching. Normally, I personally really do not enjoy when stories use this convention, but in this instance, I really thought it worked super well and loved it very much. Rowell has such humor to her writing that I am just always in awe of and feel like is @ing me in a way I like and her characters are always so visceral and raw. Shiloh was an intense character and I loved her physicality and personality, and felt like I related to her in some ways that were interesting to reflect upon. Cary was really an interesting MMC and I loved his multifaceted-ness and the way he changed from teen years to adult (and the way we got to see him through different eyes and POVS). I loved their world and I loved the secondary characters and that this story was extremely character driven. There were so many lines in this one that had me chuckling to myself, or swooning, and choking up. This book definitely made me cry. (twice). I am going to need Rainbow Rowell to write a trillion more adult books so I can horde them like a dragon and live in a cave and read them in a comfort den forever. Had me screaming crying kicking my feet giggling the whole shebang. This was a balm. Will not be over this one for a while.

Thank you thank you thank you William Morrow for letting me read this early in exchange for an honest review!!!

Slow Dance is a slow burn romance that was perfect for the start of the summer (I know it's still spring...) but I LOVED this one. Rainbow Rowell is one of my favorites and has such a way with creating fully fleshed out characters and worlds. Highly recommended for those wanting second-chance loves, slow burns, and sweet reads.

SLOW DANCE
Rainbow Rowell

What I wanted was romance. I wanted true love and happily ever after, what it ended up being was a slow burn that went out before it even got started.

SLOW DANCE by Rainbow Rowell (secretly one of my favorite authors) stars Shiloh and Cary. It feels like they’ve known each other forever. They were friends in school and grew up to live separate lives. Now adults, Shiloh wonders if there might be something more to their connection, Cary has always known there is.

We follow as the years go by and their relationship morphs and changes over time. Will they put their feelings first and permanently change their status? Or will they stay friends forever?

Will they-won’t they can take you a long way but without a little bit of sizzle every once in a while the fire will go out. This romance pairing didn’t work for me, unfortunately. I did not connect with either of the main characters. Even though I didn’t connect with the characters I enjoyed the writing and carriage of the story.

As the book went on, I grew frustrated with how slowly everything moved, and I wished the characters were more in the driver’s seat of their lives, rather than observing from the passenger seat. My biggest problem with SLOW DANCE was the pace of the relationship between Shiloh and Cary.

I love Rainbow Rowell and will probably check out everything she publishes. Oddly, it seems although I don’t often read young adult literature, I prefer Rainbow’s novels for young adults.

Thanks to Netgalley and William Morrow for the advanced copy!

SLOW DANCE…⭐⭐⭐

⭐️⭐️⭐️From William Morrow Publishing: Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary.
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.
And yet, somehow, everything changed.
Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.
When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be.
It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.
**********************
My review: I really liked Landline by Rowell. Super fun and made me think. This book was much slower to get into but I was interested in Shiloh and Cary. The idea of can you revisit or reinstate a high school intense relationship? Lots of romance books center around this idea. Shiloh and Cary seemed "regular". No one was rich or famous, as is often a trope in romance. Maybe that's what kept me interested. The back and forth between their teen years and the present was a good way to invest the reader and help understand both of their feelings.
While parts of the book seemed to drag I was involved and hopeful. I wanted it to work more for Cary than Shiloh, but I wanted them to live happily ever after. Overall, a story about two imperfect people trying to find a perfect ending.

⭐️⭐️⭐️Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Publishing for an advance digital copy in exchange for my review.

The real star of this book is the pacing. It expands and contracts through time in a really creative way. It felt very true to how various seasons of life feel and are experienced differently. So much of this story made me cringe deeply, but that is clearly intentional and core to the characters. In the end, I think this is a bit too long and could be tightened quite a bit. That said, it’s a great entry to the slow burn and friends to lovers genres, with Rainbow Rowell’s typical charm. Thank you to netgalley and the publishing team for access to an early copy in exchange for this honest review.

I wasn't prepared for this book to be as serious as it is, and I admit I'm often in the mood for something light and frothy. It's really good, though! It feels incredibly authentic, and I'm dying to know whether the embryo of this book was an Eleanor and Park sequel that evolved a lot (a lot! it's not the same set-up at all!) over time. The characters are great, and it's painfully real. Second-chance romances sometimes don't make sense to me, but this one did. It makes so much sense it like a knife to the heart. But I love Rainbow Rowell, and I will read anything she writes.

Thank you to NetGalley and Rainbow Rowell for providing me with an ARC of *Slow Dance*.

I really enjoyed this book. Shiloh and Cary’s story of rekindling a high school friendship into something deeper really resonated with me. I’m a sucker for “we grew up together and were always in love but didn’t realize it until adulthood” stories, and this one did not disappoint. I loved how Rowell’s writing captured their deep history and connection. Her humor and poignant passages were a delight.

The characters felt incredibly real, and their family situations were depicted with a subtlety that felt genuine. However, I felt the book was a bit light on plot, making it feel somewhat long and slow at times due to the frequent timeline jumps. Despite this, the emotional journey and character development were compelling.

Rowell masterfully conveyed complex emotions and the messy, imperfect nature of relationships. The ending, thankfully, avoided unnecessary tragedy and left me feeling satisfied. This book is heartwarming, frustrating, romantic, and hopeful all at once. Highly recommended if you enjoy deep character explorations and second-chance love stories.

Thank you again for the opportunity to experience this story!

i feel like this book exists within a small box. i never want to leave this box. i think i will reread this book again and again. i love everything about it and the natural-ness of it. rainbow rowell has a way of writing that makes you just go ‘i see exactly what this means’ and everything feels very fluid and honest and real and normal. this was so NORMAL. and it was so heartwarming and gorgeous and touching and lovely.

Theres nothing I love more than a second chance romance friends to lovers. Ive always been a fan of Rainbow Rowell so when I saw that she was realizing a new book I knew I had to read it. As always I was hooked from the first page and I finished this in a sitting. The longing, the yearning and how much they clearly loved each other made my heart ache, this story was beautifully written and I loved reading the before and the present and how the got together, this story was so good and it reminded me why I love friends to lovers so much.

Thank you to the publisher and to netgalley for sending this my way!

I have been dreading writing this review because I am a long-time Rainbow Rowell fan and I had that I had some negative feelings about this one. I remember a few years ago that there was some controversy over racist or at least racially insensitive content in Eleanor and Park, so maybe I was primed to pay particular attention to problematic elements, but I did cringe a few times reading this. Overall, this is a great romance plot - Shiloh, Cary, and Mikey were best friends in high school, but grew apart - especially Shiloh and Cary, who everyone assumed was either already a couple in high school or would be eventually. Fast forward to now (or technically 2006) - Shiloh is a divorced mother of two young kids and she sees Cary for the first time in more than a decade at Mikey's wedding. They reconnect and try to figure out what they can be to each other after all that time. The story alternates between various points in the past (mostly high school) and the present. There are a lot of great side characters here - especially Junie, Shiloh's daughter who I found completely hilarious - and I liked the plot points about navigating challenging family relationships. Now for the things that bugged me - I felt like there was some very odd stuff about queer sexualities in this (even though Shiloh is portrayed as a queer/bi character), and discussions of crime/safety issues in Shiloh and Cary's childhood (and Shiloh's current) neighborhood read as potentially racially coded to me. It was hard for me to tell if these things were included in the narrative as, like, a commentary, or if they were just insensitive. I think this would have benefitted from a sensitivity reader. While I did enjoy the characters and plot, I want to be honest in this review and say that I felt uncomfortable at several points in the narrative.

I have previously absolutely loved Rainbow Rowell's books so I was very excited to snag this ARC! That being said, this story was a bit of a disappointment for me! This book felt like an anthem for "weird kids" who grew up into "weird adults" and I mean that in the most positive light. I have always appreciated Rowell's characters for not being the stereotypical model-quality heroes and heroines. I think that is so refreshing to see (especially in a romance novel), and I did enjoy that in this book also. I had a very hard time connecting with the main character, Shiloh, because I ultimately don't feel like I understood her or why she is the way that she is. There were a LOT of unanswered questions surrounding her by the end of the book, and since this story is extremely character focused rather than plot focused, it left me feeling unsatisfied.

Her high school best-"extremely platonic"-best friend Cary carried the story for me and I felt the most sympathetic towards him. He was dealt some rough cards in life and at times I'm not sure how he wasn't completely over Shiloh fighting and arguing with him every step of the way in addition to everything else he was dealing with. Also, Shiloh's work friend Tom was amazing and I needed about 300% more of Tom.

I'll continue to read Rainbow Rowell's books in the future, this one just happened to not be for me!

4.5 rounded down!! I really liked this - the “we grew up together and were always in love but didn’t realize it until adulthood and now we have a second chance, maybe” storyline gets me probably more than any other. I love when the characters already have a deep history and connection. I love Rainbow’s writing style and her humor - there were a lot of perfection passages and sentences that I screenshotted to come back to. I was very invested but for whatever reason I wasn’t completely DESTROYED which is why I went down to 4 instead of up to 5. But there are many many great things about this book. I also really liked how their family situations were talked about - much of what was happening with Cary’s mom (grandma) was very familiar to me and I like how they didn’t make a huge deal over the things she was going through and her situation with her house etc, it was just part of the story. My one sort of critique is that it felt like there wasn’t a lot of plot and because of that, and how we kept jumping back and forth in time, it felt a big long without much really happening or being moved along. But it was a story told well nonetheless and I enjoyed these characters and getting to spend some time with them. (Also since it wasn’t written in the typical format of “something bad happening around 70%,” when I was getting close to the very end I was terrified that there would suddenly be a huge tragedy and everything would fall apart. Thankfully we made it through!! ❤️)

Let me preface this review by saying I have thoroughly enjoyed the Rainbow Rowell I've read to date, especially Eleanor and Park and Fangirl. Landline was just so so for me, but I also really enjoyed Attachments. So, all of this to say, I wasn't sure where on the spectrum of like to love I'd end up with this one when I requested it on Netgalley.

As teenagers, Shiloh, Cary and Mikey were always together. The three went to prom together and did yearbook and were generally a package deal. That's not to say that Shiloh and Cary didn't have their own special connection and a lot of tension, leading many a close friend or relative to wonder if they were together. Fast forward fifteen-ish years and the three are reunited at Mikey's second wedding in their hometown of Omaha. Cary and Shiloh reconnect and in some ways it's like they were never apart to begin with. With so many words unspoken between the two and so many more misconstrued, where will they land this time as adults?

This was good, but not incredibly memorable for me. It won't stick out the way Fangirl and Eleanor and Park did, but it was still an enjoyable read. I got a little sick of how in her own head Shiloh was, but Cary seemed to have patience in spades so it all seemed to work out well. It was a sweet story.

Read if you like:
✅ Second chance romance
✅ Friends to lovers
✅ Military rep
✅ Small town romance

⭐⭐⭐

I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a fun intense version of a beach read. I loved some of the tropes used and thought it was a nice plot.

Slow Dance is a tale about a woman that feels like she was never able to escape her life. I feel like this theme is overdone so I was a little bored with this book. I do like how Rainbow Rowell writes though.

I didn't know I was in the mood for a slow burn, adult, realistic romance until I picked this up. Fair warning, I love a lot of Rowell's work, but have been reading darker lately. But this was sad and real and beautiful. Long term pining, good friendships, good parenting, cute kids. I felt like I was learning about people I care about and wanted to cheer for, even if they aren't perfect. Because who of us is? Beautiful and I think romance and Rowell fans will love this.

Rainbow Rowell has a special way of writing that feels so cozy. It's warm and comforting and completely midwestern in a way that only midwesterners can capture. I loved how all of her books feel like coming home but with big hearts and swoony romance.

Slow Dance is Rainbow Rowell for grown ups. It's sweet and swoony, but with a little more spice that normal. It's the second chance-ish, friends to lovers, slow burn story of Cary and Shiloh. They were best friends in high school who meet again at a wedding 15 years later. In completely different phases of life, they connect deeply and instantly. We get both their past and present stories (in the way of Love and Other Words) and both timelines kept me wanting more. I sat down to read half and read all. It was totally worth the binge.