Slow Dance had some real highs and lows for me. The middle stretch, where Shiloh and Cary’s friendship turns into something more complicated, is genuinely compelling. Rowell does a great job with the emotional weight of their misunderstandings and repeated failures, making it a wrenching and vivid read. I appreciated the authentic Omaha setting and the portrayal of Shiloh’s life as a single mom—it felt real and grounded. However, the constant miscommunications and the characters' refusal to have important conversations got on my nerves. When the romance finally kicked into gear, it strangely lost its spark, making it feel like a letdown after all the buildup. Despite these issues, the book was a nice, fluffy read that offered a bit of escape when I needed it.

Rainbow Rowell books are always going to be a hit for me. I just can't imagine a day where I won't love them. Rainbow Rowell writes books for ME. She writes these messy fucked up characters with their messy fucked up families and lives and then she makes two of obsessed with each other and SCARED about it and I eat it up every single time!!!!!!

This book could be classified as friends-to-lovers and/or second-chance romance depending on how you look at it. It's about Shiloh and Cary, best friends in high school, almost more, and then lost to each other for 15 years. After all that time, where can they really go when they finally see each other again? Shiloh is divorced with two small children and living with her mom. Cary lives on the ocean half his life.

This novel switches back and forth between past and present which is another thing I LOVE. I love getting a present scene and then a correlating past scene that gives readers more context for the importance of the present scene. It makes everything hit so much harder and it allows the author to show us things and not tell us like lots of authors are doing lately.

I enjoyed this book, but I will say some of the lines in the adult scenes made me want to chop my head off. Rainbow always writes really intense romances and really intense sexual moments, but I think they're usually less overt and I think she just missed a couple times with this one and added some cringey shit. Which. All my favorite authors have done so not a huge deal.

That and the lives the characters are living in this book did make it a little harder for me to care about them. I loved them as individuals, but I personally do not like children or the military, so this one missed for me a little bit.

Otherwise, it was beautiful and stunning, and I could hardly put it down. I finished it in two days.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC!

Shiloh, Cary, and Mikey were the best of friends growing up, but there was something more between Shiloh and Cary. From the time they were in junior high, they were drawn to each other. But they never dated. Years later, Cary is in the Navy and Shiloh is a single mom. They reunite at a wedding. They are still drawn to each other, but there is a hesitation about getting together. Told through dual timelines, Cary and Shiloh’s relationship history unfolds. The dual timeline was an excellent way for the reader to get to know the characters and how their pasts shaped them as adults. Both grew up in difficult family situations in a poor neighborhood of Omaha, Nebraska. As teens, they dreamed of leaving Omaha. Cary joined the Navy and has traveled the world. Shiloh went to college and had dreams of becoming an actress. After an unsuccessful marriage, she and her two young children move in with her mother – back into her childhood home. When they reunite, Shiloh and Cary come to realize that their relationship is more than friendship, but there are many obstacles in their way.

I am such a fan of Rainbow Rowell’s books for adults. She is a master of character development. Her stories draw me in. (One of my favorite books of all time is Rowell’s Eleanor and Park.) Slow Burn is a romance, but it has so much more! I loved it!

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for providing me with an advanced review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Shiloh & Cary were close in high school, and along with Mikey, they made a tight friend group, but Shiloh & Cary's friendship went deeper. They never dated. Later, they got together while Cary was on leave from the Navy and Shiloh was in college. For just one night and things imploded and damaged the friendship. It's 14 years later and they find each other at Mikey's wedding.

The story bounces back and forth from now to different influential periods of their lives growing up and growing their friendship. The poignancy is palpable, and I'm such a sucker for that.

I really loved this story.

‘Slow Dance’ shifts between the nostalgic high school days and perils of adulthood. After Cary and Shiloh are reunited at a friend’s wedding, they realize sometimes picking back up where they left off isn’t always as easy as they wish.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this title. Rainbow Rowell does it again. She has written such a beautiful book.

Rainbow Rowell is my comfort author. Everything she writes is just instantly nostalgic and all-encompassing and Slow Dance is no different. This book is everything I love about Rowell’s writing and more. I don’t need fancy plots and sweeping storylines - just give me two fundamentally flawed characters learning and growing together, and I’m a happy girl. Slow Dance gives you that in droves. It’s a slow burn of monologues and frustrating interactions, but it’s real and it’s honest. They’re just two people in different stages of their lives and it’s such a beautifully raw story.

Watching Cary and Shiloh's love story unfold, in both the present and the past, is just magical. This story is told is dual timelines which doesn’t always work for me, but it’s critical here and done exceedingly well. You have to see how Cary and Shiloh were as teenagers to understand their hesitations in the present. I especially enjoyed Shiloh's character as she evolves and opens back up with Cary - I love how honest she is about her experiences and her fears. And I love how Cary's guards continue to slip ever so slightly. There's moments that peak out where you're just like "oh, Cary's secretly a freak," and it's just fun. Shiloh is Simon-esque at times, and it’s fun seeing aspects and continuations of stories and characters I love brought through in her writing.

I also adored all of the side characters too, especially how Cary interacted with Shiloh’s kids. Both of them have serious familial trauma, but I loved how it expands on the reality that when you’re a teen, you don’t know everything about your parents, and growing up is realizing that no one has their lives together.

At its core, this story is a romcom. It will make you laugh, and it will bring you to tears. It’s unfailingly honest and breathtakingly beautiful. I already know this will be a story that I want to come back to over and over again.

Thank you to the publisher for the advanced copy!

Slow Dance is a slow burn romance between high school best friends Shiloh and Cary who reconnect in their thirties after spending fourteen years apart.

Shiloh is a single mom and Cary is in the navy. They start by rekindling their friendship and then try to figure out how to find time and space for romance while dealing with all the normal struggles of adults in their thirties.

Their story was down to earth in a way that I think will be more relatable to a lot of readers than the many, many romances set in NYC and LA. I liked that it was set in Omaha, NE of all places.

I did feel that it was probably 100 pages too long and dragged for me at times. And the language occasionally felt a little clunky – I’m thinking of a number of mentions of Shiloh’s sexy crooked teeth …..

Fans of Rainbow Rowell and fans of slow burn romances are sure to enjoy this sweet and realistic romance.

I'm a fan of Ms Rowell. So I enjoyed this book she always does terrific characterization, you want to know about all her characters. She also excels in her settings, the descriptions are always thorough and detailed for the location and time-period, so the reader is full immersed in the story.

What a read. this reminds me of Rowell's best books--the characters shimmer, the world is real, and the moments stay with you. A heartfelt, comforting, memorable read that aches with nostalgia and love.

2.5
Middle of the road read.
I liked some of the flashbacks and the awkward feeling of being a teenager and how to show feelings without being too vulnerable or having "an out".
But then they didn't actually grow up. Adult Shiloh was unlikable and difficult, average looking slob. Their marriage ending up showing business arrangement vs childhood safe place that became love.
None of the adults actually seemed like they had changed and grown up.
Junie was a bright light of entertainment when she was around.

Imagine the most annoying theater kid in your school as the main character in a rom com. That’s how I felt reading this book, which was a little too long, a little too angsty, and a little too reliant on flashbacks to try to tell a compelling story. I didn’t understand why the two main characters couldn’t be together, even though I wasn’t necessarily rooting for them to be together either. While there were some beautifully written lines, this was unfortunately my least favorite Rainbow Rowell.

This one didn't pull me in quite as fast as her other work has - maybe it's been too long, but it felt like the pacing was a bit off. I enjoyed her YA books more. This one made me kinda sad, so it wasn't the right book for my current phase of life.

I have been waiting for years for Rainbow Rowell to publish another adult book. I love the banter she writes between her characters. She does banter with the best of writers. The story of the relationship between Cary and Shiloh was sweet and I loved how it covered so many years. I gave the book 4 stars for the banter and just because I am so happy to have another Rainbow Rowell book. The aspect of the book at wasn't as satisfactory to me was that the challenges the leads characters faced were not really believably significant challenges in my mind. All said, though, I really enjoyed the book and can't wait for Ms. Rowell to publish another!!

Rainbow Rowell has wrote some AMAZING books that I absolutely loved and devoured. Slow Dance is not one of them.

It does start out great. Gets you hooked in the first couple chapters then... fizzles out.

Chapters are short and flow easily. Easy to read.

The timeline jumps around a lot which isn't enjoyable.

The story was just awkward. Wasnt my favorite.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Carry On series will be my forever favorite Rainbow Rowell series. I do think she writes enjoyable adult books, but once again her strength is in YA.

Personally, this book just didn't vibe with me. 😬 I've always enjoyed Rowells books! And I'm so bummed with how I feel about this one.

I really liked Cary and felt like he deserved so much more in everything. He had a good story. Navy, resolving family issues, friendships.

I won't get into great detail, but a couple things that bugged me...

Shiloh... 🫣 I just couldn't get into this character. The way she acted, the way she talked... I kept forgetting she was a 33 year old single mother. The flashbacks made sense with how she acted in high-school, but it was like she acted the same way.

The intimate scenes were pretty cringy. It was like a fluffy, cute read and then suddenly throwing out the f word, and d word. (Don't get me wrong, I read lottts of romance so it's nothing new) but for the tone of the book, it felt like to much. Like it was trying to hard to be romance spiceyness when the whole book was not.

While I did like the flashbacks, it felt like it jumped around a lot. Not in any order. Though I understand a lot of times it would relate to the present situation. But still threw me off sometimes. And also I'm not sure how far into the book it was, but all of a sudden it was Cary's POV?? That was a twist I didn't see coming 🤨

Thank you Netgalley and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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?