A companion book to Love, Lucas, buy if you have the first and want to know more of the story.

Please ignore the summary it is only partially correct which bothers me more than you could know. First of all Cole isn't the rich boy who only cares about himself. He does have money but he always has had an interest in our main character, Emmy. Second, Cole helps train Emmy after her one-on-one race with Emmy and that is at the very very end of the book. There is so much more that goes on with her and Cole before the training. Also, why is the terrible accident even mentioned? This summary....

Now that my complaints of the summary are over, which I completely forgotten about before I read the book, on to my thoughts on Emmy. Emmy has fire and attitude which is done in a way that makes her sound like the cool kid in the story. Not the actual kid because she has exactly one friend at the beginning of the book, but just like that loner kid in the school ground that doesn't take anything from anybody. I loved her spirit and that spirit was only rivaled by her best friend Kelsie who will not let Emmy lose her fire. Kelsie is always there for her friend. She's just the type of person you would want as a best friend - encouraging and (for the reader's sake) always the one trying to push her towards her love interest.

Cole is very sweet when we first meet him. He cares for Emmy clearly and will keep on teasing her even when she tries to push him away. He always tries to be encouraging towards her mountain bike training. He races as a mountain biker as well and is captain of the team she created which is where a bunch of tension is placed towards him. The bad news is that the first half I really liked him but in the second half I felt he was too pushy. It felt like he thought she owed him something because he liked her/was nice to her. So Emmy tries to push back. If you don't like it go away. Don't complain. I know it's something she obviously needs to work on but I just didn't like him later on. The relationship kind of bored me after a while. By default, I didn't feel as connected to Emmy because of the relationship she was in or really the way she kept on acting as I did in the beginning.

Emmy's mom has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's which pretty much sucks on Emmy's end. The way Emmy goes about it isn't right. I would hope I would do the direct opposite. I can see her point of view of it all. She latches on to the bad part to justify her behavior but still. That's your mom. Her relationship with her mom ended up being unclear to me. There was something that I see could have been done towards the end to get them closer. Their relationship could have been explored more but that twist at the end changed things. That twist never really registered with me because it felt so unnecessary.

Lucas is a character who died a little while back that Emmy hasn't been able to get over. At least, I supposed that was true. I was worried from the initial Cole flirting with her and her focus on training that she didn't really care about Lucas anymore. But there were moments throughout the book that had her mentioning him and I got the sense that she really did care. There is actually another book I discovered about his sister's adjustment after his death called Love, Lucas. I wouldn't mind reading about her time because I got something really juice spoiled in this one about what happens to her.

I almost forgot about Emmy's brother and father! I really liked her relationship with her brother. I felt with her father she interacted with him just enough to make me satisfied. I liked that she did interact with her family and it wasn't just her out in the world. I dislike when books ignore the family.

A note on the mountain biking: It really made me want to get outside and go running. I would never do mountain biking like my crazy brother but I do enjoy being in the outdoors in other ways. I love being motivated by books! All the training and races were the best part for me because I like all of that stuff.

Although the first half did better for me than the last I did enjoy Emmy's personality, her friend, her relationship with her brother, and the mountain bike training. The romance could have done with a bit of less in the book, the mother-daughter relationship could have been resolved, and the twist didn't need to be there. I will still like to try Sedgwick's other books because her character writing shows she has potential.

Sky Pony Press and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Switching Gears. This is my honest opinion of the book.

Only one month after Lucas, neighbor and best friend, died from an illness, Emmy decides to ride in her first mountain bike race of the season. When a second place finish prompts her to accept a race with her biggest rival, Whitney, will Emmy put everything on the line to prove that she can win? Will family issues and confusing feelings about Cole, fellow racer and high school team captain, help Emmy to gain perspective or lose focus?

This YA romance shows a teenager as she struggles through confusing feelings and immense grief. A story about loss, love, and hope, Switching Gears is a clean romance with realistic undertones. A little typical for a YA romance, I nevertheless liked the story and the main characters. YA readers will enjoy the clean romance, as well as the strong and determined main characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and sky Pony Press !

This was a companion novel to Love, Lucas. While I did not read that this book stood on its own very well. Emmy is still struck by the loss of her first love that she never even got the chance to be with. The book starts off with her taking her first steps into trying to reclaim her life but fate may have other plans when her mom becomes sick.
Emmy is a mountain biker and bike builder. I LOVE THAT it truly made her stand out for me. She didn't care if she was all kinds of dirty and I loved that. She is sarcastic and a little rude but I like it. Cole is misjudged by her from the get go. I loved them getting to know each other. It was a great slow burn romance.
I did not feel like we really ever saw her deal with her mother's dementia. She was angry, angry, scared ,angry, and hopeful books over with no showing us the mend. That aspect was pretty disappointing to me. I wanted to see her build her relationship back. There is also a twist at the end. Weird as it may sound that is part of the reason I dropped a star on this. Not that is was a bad twist but it ended up being a few pages of story I wanted to hear. That twist should have been a cliffhanger so we could have had an entire book of Emmy's journey back from the twist.
All in all the book was still really great I actually ended up reading it one sit down. I was up way to late finishing it! I needed to know what happened. This was super close to being four stars but again I wanted so much more of the end that I have to drop down a bit 3.7.

Favorite Quote
"I'm with you one hundred percent. I didn't come this far to turn around and leave when things get tough. I want to be with you, Em."

a young adult story about loss and grief, switching gears tackles some heavy subjects. emmy martin is still recovering from the loss of her best friend and the one boy she'd loved forever, lucas nelson. nothing has felt right since his death, even the peace she can find on the bike trails is broken by a string of competitive losses and losing the captaincy of her high school bike team.

it doesn't help that the guy she lost the captaincy to, cole evans, is amazing at it. and he's rich and good-looking and he has sponsors. and he keeps seeking her out, she's convinced he's lording it all over her, but emmy's friend harper thinks that he's in love with emmy and that maybe it's time for emmy to move on from lucas.

when emmy is blind-sided by her parents' revelation that her mother is suffering from the symptoms of early-onset alzheimer's, emmy feels like everything in her life is out of control. but this loss of control allows cole to somehow sneak through her walls. and emmy realizes that maybe cole is someone who is worth knowing, worth loving; that maybe judging people based on appearances isn't fair or right; that opening yourself to love requires taking a risk; and that if you switch gears, change your outlook, then maybe the path ahead runs more smoothly.

emmy has to navigate a lot of crises in this novel. possibly one too many. because i'm not sure the final obstacle she needed to overcome was really necessary to put her through. but it does make emmy stronger. it added an new level of emotional weight and allowed us to see other sides of the characters which was nice. this was a beautiful story, i'm so glad i got to know these characters.