This Adventure Ends by Emma Mills

This Adventure Ends
by Emma Mills

Read: August 24 - 25, 2016
Published:  October 4, 2016 by Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Source: Physical ARC from Macmillan (Thank you!)
Category: YA, Contemporary, Friendships, 

Find: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | Indiebound

Book Description: Sloane isn't expecting to fall in with a group of friends when she moves from New York to Florida—especially not a group of friends so intense, so in love, so all-consuming. Yet that's exactly what happens.

Sloane becomes closest to Vera, a social-media star who lights up any room, and Gabe, Vera's twin brother and the most serious person Sloane's ever met. When a beloved painting by the twins' late mother goes missing, Sloane takes on the responsibility of tracking it down, a journey that takes her across state lines—and ever deeper into the twins' lives.

Filled with intense and important friendships, a wonderful warts-and-all family, shiveringly good romantic developments, and sharp, witty dialogue, this story is about finding the people you never knew you needed. 

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Confession time: I wasn't a great fan of Mills' previous book First & Then. It just didn't click with me as much as I'd hoped. But I liked it well enough to pick up This Adventure Ends. I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this one, and didn't have super high expectations. But right away I was hooked. I COULD NOT STOP reading! I would have read this book all the way through from start to finish in one sitting if I'd had the time. It is for sure one of my favorite contemporaries of the year. 

I love how This Adventure Ends is a light and fun and quickly read on the surface, but it packs a deeper punch that is there all along, though you have to get to know to see. In many ways this parallels Sloane's character and her journey through the book.

This Adventure Ends is about a girl who moves her senior year of high school, but it doesn't fall into the standard traps of this common trope. The story has a heavy focus on friendships as Sloane falls in with Vera and Gabe and company, although it takes her a while to figure out how important they've become to her and she to them. I was riveted to her and Remy's search for the painting, and I found Sloane's dad's foray into fan fiction to be amusing, but what he and Sloane learn about life from that - and Sloane realizes about love and his writing - all tied in so well to this story in ways I didn't expect.

Like Mills' previous hero, Gabe is a bit Darcy like. He seems serious and closed off at first, and doesn't open up or express himself well. Sloane and he start off unsure of each other, though they are orbiting in the same friend group. I loved the very subtle romance between them that plays out through the book. It is slowww moving, and they're both pretty clueless, but that was all so worth it in the end.

I'm always and forever a romance girl, but my favorite element in this book was definitely the friendships. Between Sloane and Vera, especially, but also with Remy and Frank and Gabe and even Aubrey. Who doesn't love a close knit group like this, who tells it like it is and has each other's backs even at the worst of times? I loved the different ways and levels on which they all interacted. And watching them take in Sloane, and see Sloane realize what she had in them, was so so rewarding.

Put this on your radar for sure!

Love triangle factor: None
Cliffhanger scale: Standalone 

P.S. I'm on the This Adventure Ends blog tour and have a super fun post coming for that next week. It's one of my favorite blog tour posts ever, and a great way to get to know the characters better.