Title: Like Me
Author: Katharine Light
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Source: Rachel’s Random Resources / Netgalley
Blurb: It’s summer 2008 and Jessica drives two hundred miles back to Manchester for her twenty-year school reunion. She had planned to have her life so much more together by now. She had not expected to be a divorced, exhausted mother of two small children.
When she turns up on old friend Sam’s doorstep, her secret crush for most of her teens, she realises how much they have in common. He’s a divorced father of three, and despite the open hostility of Kate, his elder daughter, and the two families living so far apart, she cannot stop her fantasy life fast-forwarding to an idyllic happy ending.
Both Jess and Sam have reasons not to delve into the past; particularly the episodes involving James, the larger-than-life leader of their teenage pack, who is a newly elected MP.
But, when Sam invites Jess to come to James’s wedding, it’s an invitation she can’t resist…
Review: A novel set in Manchester, my home town? Sign. Me. Up!
Sam and Jess are teenage friends who reconnect later on in their lives, the story told in past and present format and giving readers an insight into how their relationship as teens develops into one that’s more grown up.
There is so much depth to this book. It’s not just about Sam and Jess, but their families and friends, pulling the reader right in until you feel like you really know them. Like you’re a part of their lives. It’s very skilfully done and I’m definitely signing up for Ms Light’s next book!
My only quibble is Sam’s “friends” James and Rob. They are textbook narcissists, manipulative and self-centred. Like Me is the first of a series so, despite my dislike of them, I am curious as to how they’ll change… or not.
Overall, though, I loved this book and its main characters, and highly recommend it.
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