This was cute, and entertaining enough to serve as bedtime reading while waiting for my brain to drift off, but it required a decent amount of suspension of disbelief.

The story followed Libby, who, true to typical chick lit stereotypes, is going absolutely nowhere in her life. Her boyfriend Simon has just dumped her, after living with her for so many years without proposing that it should have already been obvious to her that he wasn’t that into her. Her older sister Rebecca is uptight and perfect, and she and her mother conspire to make Libby feel even worse about her life choices, while Rebecca also manipulates Libby into babysitting her son since she has nothing else going on in her life. Libby, meanwhile, rides the same London bus every day, and meets the elderly Frank, who eventually tells her the story of how he’s been riding this same bus for decades, hoping to run into a girl he met many years before, who changed his life. Inspired by the romance of this story, Libby decides to help him find her — even though it seems unlikely that she is even still alive, let alone that she still lives in London.

She also meets Frank’s caregiver, Dillon, who looks like a punk (mohawk and leather jacket and all). She’s frightened by him at first, but he soon becomes the unlikely love interest, until (spoiler alert) Libby finds out that she’s pregnant, and Simon wants her back.

There’s a bit of a downer in the story of Frank (who has advancing dementia) and his lost love, and a bit of a political agenda inserted there too. If it ended “happily ever after” there it would be too cheesy, I grant you… and I’m sure the author thought she was being more realistic. But at least Libby does get her happily ever after which redeemed the book in my eyes.

My rating: ***

Language: decent amount as I recall

Violence: none

Sexual content: I think there was some? But not a lot

Political content: oh yeah. Pretty heavy. But not until the end.

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