[arc review]
Many thanks to the author, N.S. Perkins, for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Our Final Love Song releases June 20, 2023
- dual pov
- second chance
- music summer camp
- time travel/groundhog summer
- sharing one sleeping bag
Emma and Jamie have been in a five year relationship since they were teens, and have both gone to the same musicians summer retreat together.
However, over the past year, Emma has noticed that Jamie hasn’t been prioritizing her and their relationship over his aspiring career as a pianist, and it’s really taking a toll on her.
She wants to make it through the 8 weeks at the summer retreat before breaking up with him so that the forced proximity doesn’t make things more awkward, but ends up ending things between them on the car ride there.
The chemistry between Emma and Jamie was not believable whatsoever and their interactions did not have me rooting for them to reconcile their relationship. I wanted to connect with them so badly, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
The time travel element of this book did not make a lot of sense at all and I think the logic of it should have been thought through a bit more.
As soon as Emma and Jamie enter the camp grounds, they’ve been transported back to the summer a year prior. There’s no initial indicators that anything has physically happened until they start interacting with other people and realize the familiarities.
What didn’t make sense to me was the fact that Emma and Jamie were able to receive phone calls from their family from the future timeline, while their physical bodies were in the past. Why not just have it so that all interactions from the future were sent to their phone but with a busy signal instead? It would make more sense given the invisible force field barrier they both found that surrounded the camp grounds.
I also don’t understand how if they were one year in the past, how in the hell was their internet still able to give search results as if they were in the present/future?
These technological elements didn’t give for much continuity.
Even with the time travel and having this opportunity for redemption, Jamie still ended up reverting to old habits of putting practicing piano before anything and anyone else, and it was only revealed in the resolution that future Jamie made much of a change. Again, I think a lot of the issues I had stemmed from the muddled timelines and how their memories weren’t caught up.
I was really excited going into this knowing the two main characters were pianists since I’m a musician, but I wanted to feel more passion radiating through and more discussion on how Emma was rediscovering her love for playing piano. That one scene incorporating Jamie’s sister and the volunteer work was amazing but I wanted more of that.
And the “tell me we’re always going to resolve our issues like this” after they had what Jamie called “magic sex” rubbed me the wrong way because the high of serotonin that sex gives shouldn’t outweigh trying to have healthy communication.
Additionally, the girlfriend of Emma’s roommate who wasn’t developed further than just being the mean one to give her dirty looks didn’t sit right with me.
cw: depression, on page panic attacks, borderline disordered eating which I don’t think was handled all that well