Emery Lord

Seventeen year-old Jonah Daniels has lived in Verona Cove, California, his whole life, and only one thing has ever changed: his father used to be alive, and now he is not. With a mother lost in a deep bout of depression, Jonah and his five siblings struggle to keep up their home and the restaurant their dad left behind. But at the start of summer, a second change rolls in: Vivi Alexander, the new girl in town. Vivi is in love with life. Charming and unfiltered, she refuses to be held down by the medicine she's told should make her feel better. After meeting Jonah, she slides into the Daniels' household seamlessly, winning over each sibling with her imagination and gameness. But it's not long before Vivi's zest for life begins to falter. Soon her adventurousness becomes all-out danger-seeking. Through each high and low, Vivi and Jonah's love is put to the test . . . but what happens when love simply isn't enough?

When We Collided

Jackie Cunningham

Beautifully written, with characters who are vibrant and colourful but also REAL. Fans of Finch and Violet from All the Bright Places will love Jonah and Vivi.

Deepika Ramesh

I love teenagers who fall in love, who talk about cosmos and stars and waves and the universe, who make art, who are saccharine. I love teenagers who are vulnerable and incurably romantic. I love them even if they think that the world revolves around them. In other words, I am a sucker for YA. Also, I loved this book. 😁

Denaiir

I loved this book! It was such a cute YA contemporary, just what I needed. 
The characters were all sweet and I enjoyed being transported into their cute little town. Both main characters were lovely, each in their very own way, and I enjoyed both perspectives equally. 
It's quite rare for me to like female leads that much, especially when they have such a strong personality, but I was swept away by Vivi and her enthusiasm about life in general, her wild imagination and her apetite for new experiences. And Jonah was the sweetest boy, I was in love! 
I also liked how mental illness was depicted in the book, very delicately and at the same time realistically.

Emily Chernisky

This book... Where do I start? With Vivi and her very extra personality and style and beliefs, or with Jonah and his chef skills and people pleasing. The relationship between these two characters came from a mutual place of brokenness which ultimately lead to their rollercoaster of a relationship. Man, this book will definitely make you cry. The ending was expected but completely unexpected, and will definitely have you balling your eyes out. I loved the aspect of having mental illness brought into the book without dehumanizing the people who do have the illness, while still showing what the illness is. All in all, this book is an amazing read and I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good cry.

dija

I enjoyed this book, I liked the characters. I mean Vivi is a sweet cutie pie and Johna is a darling. but the end.... I didn't like the end, I somehow expect more. but that doesn't mean that it isn't good because it is and I liked it.

Izza

Beatriz Pereira

This book just felt so intense. It was unbelievable well written and with such beautiful characters with complex storylines. Amazing.

sofia !

jess

This was a remarkably well-written YA contemporary that focused on mental illness and grief. It could have veered into manic pixie dream girl territory, but with a name to the mania (bipolar disorder) and the life-changing circumstances working both ways, it managed to not. And the romance was good and made sense as a summer fling, not a long-lasting romance. So I didn't mind the romance much this time around, even though I wasn't too much of a fan of it. 

I loved Vivi's character. You could tell the dreaminess was part of her personality and not just being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Emery Lord's picture of her was very, very clear and descriptive. I admit I imagine a lot of contemporary YA girls similar, but Vivi really stood out in the mass of contemporary YA. Jonah was less distinctive, but still fun to read about. 

The author has had experience with bipolar disorder, from what I understand. It's great to hear about all these authors writing about their experiences because it raises awareness without spreading a lot of misinformation. The experience was really well-written.

Can seventeen-year-old Jonah save his family restaurant from ruin, his mother from her sadness, and his danger-seeking girlfriend Vivi from herself?

Flavia Louise

4 stars
This was perfect for me today.
I needed a distraction and this was that.
And beautifully written.
A bit insta lovey? Sure.
Predictable? Definitely.
But i enjoyed it and that's what's most important.

Katie Kite

So I really enjoyed this book a lot while I was listening to it, but it wasn't the kind of story that has really stuck with me. I haven't thought about it much since I finished it, but I really did enjoy it a lot and the performance of the readers was pretty good :)

Maéva ✳︎

** spoiler alert **
           Une histoire d'amour, d'acceptation, de deuil et de remise en question. Une vraie bouffée d'air frais de voir des personnages qui ne sont pas lisses, qui bouillonnent de leur passé et qui malgré tout pensent au futur. 

J'ai beaucoup apprécié que Vivi et Jonah ne finissent pas ensemble à la fin, si ça a avait fini autrement j'aurais été déçue parce que c'était nécéssaire à leur histoire et à leur reconstruction. 

Le portrait de Vivi et de sa maladie était très touchant, c'est le genre de lecture qui te permet d'en apprendre plus sur ce que les gens peuvent vivre et c'est très important. J'ai particulièrement apprécié le style d'écriture pendant sa phase de manie qui m'a transporté dans un état de surexcitation comme le personnage principal. 

Il s'agit plus d'un 4,5/5, vivement que Goodreads nous accorde les demi étoiles. En résumé, une très bonne lecture.

marie-ange

Becky

This book had me falling head over heels. This is the most genuine and accurate book about teenage life... no, about life even, that I have read in a long while.

I won't do a full review just yet. I need to wipe away my tears and sort through my thoughts and emotions on this one. All I need to say is Emery Lord has smashed it out the park and I am glad that there is a UK publisher helping to get this book out there here.

Inês Parada

Sooo when i was half way through this book i thought i wasn’t enjoying it but when it finished i realised I actually liked it a lot!

This is about two teenagers who met in a small town during the summer, both of them struggling with some real problems, and the path during the summer of the two, falling in love with each other and dealing with those problems.

Talking about the characters, I completely loved jonah, he’s the sweetest and strongest guy, he have been through a lot and still holds everything for his family. I didn’t connect that much with vivi but she’s still very important. Both of them deal with a lot of problems, really important issues to be talked in a book.

I didn’t loved the relationship between them, it felt to quick in the begging but i guess that’s the point. However I really loved how they helped each other in all the things they were going through because i think that’s what this book is about: someone coming into your life, teach you how to deal with somethings, help you to get through dark places, be there for each other and fix your broken parts.

This book taught me that some people enter your life not to stay but just to teach you and help you at that moment, so you don’t need to be sad if someone left you, you must learn something from that and understand what was that person’s part in your life.

I loved the message in this and that’s the biggest reason I gave it a 4 stars, it’s just not a summer love, it’s something more, something bigger and the way the book ended broke my heart 🥺

María Belén

When We Collided tries unsuccessfully to be a cute romance with a MC struggling with mental illness. Instead we get a selfish and annoying protagonist and a dull love interest. Serously, Vivi is so freaking annoying. And all the other characters are boring too, they have no personality whatsoever.

There isn't much on the way of a plot. Mainly because the 'romance' (instalove) storyline was developed further than the mental illness part of the story. I get what the author tried to do but it had the opposite effect for me. 

I think it could have been a very good book but it just fails at being interesting. Sadly this wasn't a good read for me.

Elena Garcia Navarro

I just picked up this book 'cause I felt like readind something quick and easy and young adult books just do it for me in that matter. But I ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would (taking into account that I had seen and read some negative reviews about it). 

The book have its issues, sure; i.e really strong case of insta love. Also, some of the reviews I watched complained about the depiction of mental illness portrayed in the story (since one of the characters has bipolar disorder) and of course I cannot speak subjectively since I never suffered anything similar but I didn't feel like the author did a bad job there. 

I was a little bit annoyed by Vivi's actions but Jona's story completely made up for it. I loved his family dinamics, the interactions between all the siblings, the problems they face which felt very real and how he experiences cooking and everything else from his story basically. 

So, I'm happy I gave it a chance. Probably I'll pick up the new book by the author.

Ruth Parker 

I keep switching in between 2 and 3 stars. I’m not sure how I feel. I didn’t hate it, but I don’t think I liked it. It almost put me into a bit of a slump because I wanted to finish it but I didn’t really want to keep reading it... I probably should have DNF’d this book, but it wasn’t terrible. 
It should have been from just Vivi’s perspective I think; it was nice having Jonah in there, but he really wasn’t needed. His chapters dragged a bit, which is so sad considering his backstory. But this was Vivi’s story and not his. 
The subject matter at the heart of this book was great and important... I just wasn’t keen on the storyline at all.

Victoria Grace

Mariana Afonso

"My cheeks are wet, but oh, my heart - it is so full."


The last pages make this book so much better. That's all I can think about right now. Before these last ones, I would consider it a nice book, a good story and with interesting characters, but lacking something. But then comes the goodbye, and the metaphors, and the hope, and I just felt everything, and I adored it.

I loved Jonah, and reading in his POV. He is full of love and kindness and bravery.
Vivi. She is so captivating, so full of joy. I connected with her in her metaphors about life and the world, oh how I loved that about her!, but in other things, non-related to her condition, I just couldn't relate much. So I guess that was one of the reasons I didn't like the story more.

This book makes us think. It shocks with this reality we are not familiar with. And moves our hearts with the Daniels family, so so much. 

For those who like to read real stories with realistic ends, please do read this great story!

Ava Shaffer

** spoiler alert **
           I always love a book that can make me cry, and this book certainly hit that checkmark. Entertaining and artistic from start to finish, I recommend this amazing book to anyone who loves a good summer romance and heartbreaking love story ending.

Megan Leprich

While I have loved everything else Emery Lord has wrote, this one kinda left me stumped. I couldn't decide if I didn't like it or just wasn't in the mood for it at the time, hence being generous and giving it 4 stars.

Vivi just wants to live her life and feel every emotion so she decides to go off her bipolar medicine just as she's meeting Jonah. Jonah lost his dad 6 months ago to a heart attack and since then his mom has a harder and harder time getting out of bed and taking care of her multiple children. Both of them have a lot to take on in their young lives and when it gets to be too much for Viv, she tries to hurt herself. Thanks to Jonah and her mom, she's about to overcome it and get better.

I don't even feel like I just wrote that great of a review about this book but once again, this book was just kinda meh to me. Wasn't a huge fan but I do applaud the author for bringing bipolar disorder to light and writing about it.

Kaele Perkins 

** spoiler alert **
           All I have to say is. I didn’t think I would cry in this book and I didn’t. But I was definitely frustrated and sad at the end. I was not warned that this wasn’t going to end happily ever after. 😥

Nadia Leontescu

The romance was cute and the characters were very well developed. Loved the writing and the intriguing plot! It was also a good representation of the effects of bipolar disorder on more than just the person it directly affects.

When We Collided

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