Meet Me At The Summit by Mandi Lynn

Title:  Meet me at the Summit

Author: Mandi Lynn

Expected publication date: August 31, 2021

Publisher: Stone Ridge Books 

Pages: 275

Introduction

Marly Price lost her parents in a car accident 9 months ago, and since then, she's just been going through the motions. She's getting through it, but every day feels the same as the last. When she's presented with the opportunity to travel across the US in a renovated VW bus, she knows she should do it. The old her, the person she was before her parents died, would have jumped at the opportunity. To travel again, to enjoy hiking again, to enjoy photography again. Those are all things Marly wants. But after everything that's happened, will Marly be able to find passion in the things that she used to love again?

Pacing

The pacing starts off very slow as Marly is being convinced by her family to take the bus on the road trip, but as it starts to take off, it quickly becomes very repetitive. The order of events for nearly the entire book is driving --> hiking --> Marly having a panic attack on the top of a mountain-->  Marly taking photos --> Marly struggling to sleep --> repeat. Dylan, the romantic interest quickly finds his place in the cycle when he starts to calm Marly's panic attacks, but that quickly grows repetitive in nature as well. Because of this cycle, I found myself having to take a lot of breaks from reading to avoid getting bored with the story.

Romance 

I was disappointed in Marly and Dylan's romance. They knew very little little about each other and there doesn't seem to be much of substance backing their feelings for each other, so it was hard for me to care about them.

Marly

Marly was just an average protagonist. The grief she felt about her parents dying was interesting to read about but I feel like she read a little younger than a nineteen year old. I think the most prominent example of Marly reading a little younger than she was intended to be was when she actually considered staying with Dylan in Colorado instead of finishing her trip so that she could make sure she kept his interest. It felt very childish to me and she didn't really get much better throughout the course of the book. I don't think she grew very much as a character with the exception of maybe the last 25 pages or so.

General Character Thoughts

I feel like at best, the characters were average, and at worst, a little forgettable. I especially feel this way about Dylan and Lori. They both had essentially no personality. Dylan enjoyed hiking, which is necessary, but we get enough of the hiking obsession with Marly. Lori felt a little bit excitable most of the time, but she just felt like the bubbly happy token character there to balance out Marly. Mostly, they both felt like they were both only there for Marly's development rather than having personalities on their own.

Conclusion

Overall, this book was only okay. The repetitive nature really bogged it down for me and since I wasn't really into the romance, even the cutesy scenes that served to break the routine a little bit didn't interest me very much. There does look to be a second book coming, so the story will continue, and I would consider giving it a chance in hopes to see a little bit more character development.