About the Book
-
Author:
- Amelia Diane Coombs
- Genres:
- Boy-Girl Romance
- Contemporary
- YA Romance
Cover Story: Montell Jordan Award
BFF Charm: Peas in a Pod
Talky Talk: Banteriffic
Bonus Factors: Kickass Grams, Location, Precocious Younger Sister
Relationship Status: Butterflies
Content Warning: All Alone With You features a character with extreme anxiety and depression and includes instances of anxiety attacks and a mention of suicidal ideation.
Cover Story: Montell Jordan Award
I love this cover. In a sea of cutesy illustrated contemporary rom-coms, this stands out. The characters are perfectly depicted down to the weather on the album cover echoing their personalities.
The Deal:
Eloise Dunne wants nothing more than to finish her senior year and leave Seattle for the sunny campus of the University of Southern California where she can get a degree in Computer Games and leave her old, lonely, life behind. She has no friends, her parents prefer her younger sister, and her anxiety and depression are only exacerbated by both of those things.
So when her school counselor tells her that she needs to add community service to stand out to USC admissions folks, she’s annoyed. She already has a 4.1 GPA, is taking multiple AP courses, and is thisclose to being valedictorian. She doesn’t really have time—or the inclination, to be honest—to do community service, much less “show a passion” for a cause.
Working with LifeCare seems like an easy path, until she arrives at the elder care agency and realizes that she’ll have to actually be social and speak with senior citizens, not just hand out jello or whatever volunteers do at nursing homes. And then there’s Austin, who might be the most cheerful person Eloise has ever met—her exact opposite in pretty much every way.
BFF Charm: Peas in a Pod
I felt an uncomfortable connection with Eloise from the word go. Uncomfortable because Eloise is a highly prickly misanthrope, to start, who sees her solitary life as a choice she’s made, and who throws herself into school and complains about anything that throws a wrench into her plans. (Teenage Mandy was much less grumpy, but the school bit tracks.) She deals with heightened anxiety and bad depressive episodes and feels like no one wants to be around her because of these things. I occasionally got annoyed with Eloise’s tendency to fall back on self-depreciation as a coping mechanism, but it’s a lot easier to see the big picture when you’re on the outside looking in. In the end, Eloise reveals herself to be a caring, snarky delight of a human being.
Swoonworthy Scale: 7
When she first meets Austin, Eloise hates everything about him, from his permasmile to his cheerful outlook to the fact that he calls her Lou even after she grumps at him not to. (Nicknames! Swoon!) Their forced proximity slowly creates cracks in Eloise’s armor of thorny vines, and even when she thinks he’s going to leave her any second, it’s clear that the two of them go together like coffee and a rainy Seattle day.
Talky Talk: Banteriffic
Coombs’s writing is delightful and real, with characters who leap off the page and a whole lot of passages like this—
Before I can unearth my headphones from the piles of textbooks and loose scraps of paper in my bottomless backpack and properly shut myself out from the world, someone honks their horn. And to my left is a white, windowless van that crawls at a snail’s pace along the curb.
I stop.
The van stops.
Austin rolls down the passenger-side window and says, “Hey! Want some candy?”
“Are you trying to lure me into your van?” I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing as a group of elementary school kids ahead of me on the sidewalk cast horrified glances at the windowless van and run to the safety of the bus stop.
—that made me smile. Eloise and Austin don’t read like cardboard cutouts, and their relationship—while a bit slow burn—develops thoughtfully and not without a few snags; pretty typical for a high school romance.
Bonus Factor: Kickass Grams
Marianne Landis is no one’s actual grandmother, but she is a prime example of a kickass older woman who we all want to be when we grow up. She’s the former lead singer of the world-famous band The Laundromats and has become a bit of a recluse in her old age. She lives in a fancy house filled with mementos, drinks too much vodka and chain smokes—definitely a rock star. Eloise’s grumpy nature delights her, and although Eloise is awkward with her at first, they quickly become close. Marianne’s not perfect, but she’s exactly the kind of kick in the pants that Eloise needs.
Bonus Factor: Location
It is so hot here, y’all. Eloise talking about the coolness of fall in Seattle and the general seasonal weather of the Pacific Northwest—and wearing a jacket—just about killed me.
Bonus Factor: Precocious Younger Sister
Eloise calls her 11-year-old sister, Ana, a demon, and often talks about how much she deplores having to watch and/or spend time with her. But by the end of the book, I can see how their relationship trajectory is on the rise, and I have a strong feeling that if we were to check back on them in about 10 years, they’d be the best of friends. (A 5–6 year age gap is pretty hard when you’re a teen dealing with the myriad of teen things.)
“No one is here to hear me swear—or hear you scream. Don’t touch my shit, Ana. I mean it!” I march into the living room and grab my phone from the couch. “How’d you even know my password?”
Ana giggles and dives behind Dad’s armchair as I hold a throw pillow threateningly over my head. “It’s your birthday,” she says. “Aren’t you, like, supposed to be smart?”
Relationship Status: Butterflies
You gave me all sorts of happy tingles while reading, Book, and kept my attention in an era of that being a near impossibility. I know you’re happy with the relationship you’re in, but I’m feeling a way about you and needed you to know.
Literary Matchmaking
Coombs’s debut novel, Keep My Heart in San Francisco, is just as quirky and swoony.
Rachel Lynn Solomon’s Today Tonight Tomorrow is another adorable rom-com that takes place in Seattle.
All of Jenn Bennett’s contemporary novels, including Alex, Approximately, will give you similar new love butterflies and heart eyes.
FTC Full Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, but got neither a private dance party with Tom Hiddleston nor money in exchange for this review. All Alone With You will be available July 25.
sooo is this basically just P.S. i stil love you, then? Because its sounding eerily familiar
Oh, gosh, I hadn’t even thought about that. I’ve not read P.S. I STILL LOVE YOU (only seen the Netflix adaptation), but I’d like to hope they’re different enough?