I’m a longtime fan of Emma Lord’s books so I was excited to read The Getaway List, her latest YA novel. While I enjoyed watching the characters as they had adventures and found their way in the world, I didn’t love this one as much as her other books.

Riley is graduating from high school and is feeling low because she didn’t get into any of the schools she applied for. She decides what she really needs is an adventure and the best person to do it with is Tom, her best friend who moved away to Manhattan with his famous Indie director mom after Freshman year in high school. Riley’s mom doesn’t want her to go – she wants her to work at their coffee shop, but Riley feels like she is suffocating at home and is ready to spread her wings. When Riley and Tom were younger, they created a bucket list of all the adventures they wanted to do together and called it The Getaway List. Riley takes a bus from her hometown in Virginia to New York City to see Tom and they spend their summer doing the things on their list.

Tom is planning to take a gap year before starting school at Columbia. He and a few of his friends work for an app called Dear Love Dispatch where people anonymously send gifts and Tom and his friends deliver the gifts. He is staying at his mom’s NYC apartment but has some issues with her. She is busy with her work and is never home and he feels she doesn’t care about him. He gets lonely sometimes and he thinks it’s pretty wonderful to have Riley there.

Riley is outgoing and soon they have a found family of friends that want to help them with their list. Their first adventure is a free interactive writing class where they go to different locations and it sounds so cool, that now I want to do one. Then there’s stargazing, a road trip, and so much more. The author’s descriptions of food are epic and made me hungry. Riley is inspired by their adventures and begins writing short stories and dreams of writing a book.

As Riley and Tom go on their adventures they grow closer and realize they might be more than friends. It’s a slow burn romance as they decide what to do with their new feelings and attraction and share some kisses. I liked their love story a lot. The two of them were a perfect match for each other.

A quibble I have with the story is that whenTom keeps secrets and doesn’t share a few big things with Riley, her feeling are hurt. It feels like unnecessary drama. I also wondered how Riley didn’t get accepted to ten colleges in the beginning of the story. Did she set her sights too high? She was a good student but blamed her rejections on a suspension she got when she was caught making money filling in for students that had detentions. (How did she think no one would notice?). Lastly, it took them a long time to finally open up to each other about their feelings. On the bright side, I really enjoyed the secondary characters in their group of friends and their adventures.

I think this is Emma Lord’s love story to New York City (she mentions her love for the city in the acknowledgements) and I haven’t been there and so I really enjoyed living vicariously through her characters. The Getaway List is a cute YA and I recommend it to YA readers who would enjoy a coming of age story with adventures in NYC.