The Sydney Taylor Shmooze

Past Present Future by Rachel Lynn Solomon Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Rebecca Greer Buy at Bookshop.org This sequel to Today Tonight Tomorrow takes place as new couple Rowan Roth and Neil McNair head off to college: unfortunately, different colleges, with Rowan going to Emerson in Boston and Neil at NYU. This leaves the pair to navigate a long-distance relationship as they experience living away from home for the first time. While they enjoy their respective cities, they suffer self-doubt as they embark on surprising journeys of self-discovery. Life-long romance fiction aficionado Rowan worries she can no longer write romance now that she’s in love. Rowan has an absentee roommate she was hoping to befriend and is left wondering if she did something wrong. Neil instantly bonds with his roommate Skyler, something he’s surprised about since Skyler is popular and confident while Neil is a self-described “nerd”. Neil’s issues with his

See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon Simon & Schuster, 2022 Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Ronda Einbinder   Buy at Bookshop.org It’s Wednesday, September 21, and Barrett Bloom’s first day of freshman year at the University of Washington. She awakes in her dorm room to learn that her high school nemesis is her new roommate. She messes up her dream job interview for the Washingtonian college paper. She meets Miles Kasher-Okamoto (the son of the physics professor, no less, of whom she is not too fond and accidentally pepper-sprays) before knocking down a tiki torch and setting a frat house on fire. Wouldn’t you want a do-over after that kind of first day of college? Well, Barrett magically gets thirty first days of school when September 21 repeats over and over again. Award-winning author Rachel Lynn Solomon embarks on a journey back in time in See You Yesterday, a page-turning story traveling repeatedly through one day with the protagonist, who experiments with various ways

 We Can't Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon Simon & Schuster Category: Young Adult Reviewer: Cheryl Fox Strausberg Buy at Bookshop.org In the summer before she goes off to college, Quinn Berkowitz can’t help but wonder how she is going to tell her family that the future that they’ve always banked on - the one where she joins the family’s wedding planning business, isn’t the future she envisions for herself. She is tired of playing her harp at the ceremonies; she’s fed up with handling crazy brides and grooms; she hates having to give up her last summer at home with her high school friends in order to work full time. When the summer couldn’t seem to be any bleaker, her longtime crush, Tarek - the son of the caterers that her family works with - returns home after his first year at college looking happy and healthy. Quinn and Tarek haven’t spoken since a fight in the previous summer which ended when Quinn poured out her feelings for him in an email to which he never r

Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon  Category: Young Adult Reviewer: A.R. Vishny   Buy at Bookshop.org Today Tonight Tomorrow is an enemies-to-lovers contemporary romance that follows two academic rivals on the last day of their senior year of high school. Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have spent much of their high school careers trying to outdo each other for the best grades and accolades. Howl, a senior scavenger hunt spread all across Seattle, is their last chance to outdo one another. However, when Rowan realizes that a group of students wants revenge on the both of them, they put aside their feud for the evening to team up. Over the course of the evening they learn more about each other, and realize that they might actually be a perfect match. This book was a fun, addictive read. The narrative has a good sense of humor and a sweet romance at its heart. Rowan and Neil’s passions and insecurities feel authentically drawn, and the game element of the plot and the 24-hour time