Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

Description: Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row.

A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Stats: Young Adult Contemporary, 236 pages, Poppy/Little Brown, January 2012.

My Rating: 4 Stars

When I started The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, I didn't expect it to be a sit-in-one-spot-till-I-finish type of book, but it was. I mean, the premise sounds cute and the cover is pretty, all the makings of some madcap rom-com, but I was surprise how quickly this drew me in.

Hadley, our main dame, is having a bad day and that bad day leads to a sequence of events that some might call coincidence while others might call it fate. Either way, there is a cute British boy called Oliver involved and some major family drama.

I thought that because of the "love at first sight" / "24 hour" thing that the romance would be hard for me to believe within the confines of reality and my own scepticism. This had a 50/50 shot of being one of those: "You are the one, the only one!" type deals. So, when it ended up being more along the lines of "Hey, nice to meet you.", I was very pleased.

The plot is very chick-flick and had every opportunity to go somewhere bad, but it never did. Instead, within the simple plot it developed a story with a lot of heart and some very well written characters. That's what made this stand out for me, the heart and the characters. To start with I quickly found myself emotionally invested in Hadley. She seemed very real as she tried to tough things out and battle her ridiculous claustrophobia, while revealing in the past, and dreading the future. This is more then just the story of how she fell for some guy, but how she learned to accept the changes in her life.

Oliver, our boy, also did not disappoint. He was charming, funny, kind, and most importantly had his own thing going on. He was not just there to play a love interest, he too had places to go, people to see, drama to confront. It also wasn't all about how attractive he was or the blind hormone driven want of some sexy time, Oliver and Hadley were just getting to know each other.

Isn't that refreshing? They've only known each other for 24 hours and they probably know more about one another then some YA couples do over an entire trilogy.

Although there was never a question of how it was all going to end, the getting there was fun. Smith sold the entire situation with her writing. The way the narrative tangled together the past and the present was masterful. With each memory and each moment the characters felt more real and the plot would get pushed forward.

The best part of it all was that this left me giddy the whole way through. The dialogue was done perfectly, the banter was adorable, and I enjoyed this with a school girl like enthusiasm that I love to have when reading contemporary romance. I'm sure there were some faults that I'm forgetting, but overall this was an incredibly fun read, if not a bit unexpectedly so.