Fourth Comings

McCafferty, Megan. 2007. Fourth Comings. 310 pages. (Sequel to Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, Charmed Thirds)

This one surprised me. A lot. I liked it. I really liked it. I suppose I should start off by saying that I had low expectations for this one. I barely made it through Charmed Thirds. I was so very angry with Jessica Darling. So I expected this one to be more of the same. More of me wanting to slap Jessica around. But. This one charmed me in a way. In a way the previous ones hadn't. Perhaps because of how it is written. The book is written for Marcus. She's filling these two notebooks (I believe that there are two notebooks) for her boyfriend. He's popped the question--the BIG question. The thing is, she'd been thinking about breaking up with him.

And

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he'd been thinking about breaking up with her. You see, no matter how much she loves him. (And she does. You get that.) And no matter how much he loves her. (He does. You get that too.) The timing is just not ever right for these two to really, truly be together. Jessica has graduated from college. She's a bit scared to be "entering adulthood" and trying to find a job and support herself and, you know, be a grown up. And Marcus is finally ready to start college. He's had his years to find himself, to get ready for this next step in his life. Is she ready to commit to him? To move from New York City to be with him while he goes to Princeton? Is she willing to give the long distance relationship one more go? To visit back and forth on weekends? If she's not willing to compromise. If she has to have it all or nothing--as Marcus is always pointing out--then what will it be? All or nothing???

Another thing I liked about this one is that it doesn't try to do *too* much. It follows the course of a week. The one week she promised Marcus that she'd think about his proposal. (I think I felt so disconnected from Charmed Thirds because it did try to do too much by covering all of Jessica's college years. That and the fact that there was barely any Marcus.)


© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews