Title: You Can Go Your Own Way
Author: Eric Smith
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Publication date: November 2nd, 2021
336 pages
3.5/5 stars
Goodreads Synopsis
No one ever said love would be easy…but did they mention it would be freezing?
Adam Stillwater is in over his head. At least, that’s what his best friend would say. And his mom. And the guy who runs the hardware store down the street. But this pinball arcade is the only piece of his dad that Adam has left, and he’s determined to protect it from Philadelphia’s newest tech mogul, who wants to turn it into another one of his cold, lifeless gaming cafés.
Whitney Mitchell doesn’t know how she got here. Her parents split up. She lost all her friends. Her boyfriend dumped her. And now she’s spending her senior year running social media for her dad’s chain of super successful gaming cafés—which mostly consists of trading insults with that decrepit old pinball arcade across town.
But when a huge snowstorm hits, Adam and Whitney suddenly find themselves trapped inside the arcade. Cut off from their families, their worlds, and their responsibilities, the tension between them seems to melt away, leaving something else in its place. But what happens when the storm stops?
Review
Eric Smith’s newest is in the same contemporary world as his last release, Don’t Read the Comments. There is brief mention of the MCs from DRTC, but it can definitely be read as a standalone. It’s a completely unrelated story following Whitney and Adam, ex-best friends fighting a social media war on behalf of their parents. Tropes included enemies to lovers and forced proximity.
This is a solid contemporary YA read with some highly entertaining social media banter, dual POVs (which is always my favorite), and a lot of character growth from beginning to end. I love how social media is taking a bigger role in books coming out as it’s more realistic for the current world. I loved how close the community was and that the main setting was in a pinball arcade in Philly, very unique.
There were pieces I didn’t love in this – Whitney’s dad, somehow they were never in school even though it was winter?, and the lack of parental supervision. But, they were all fairly minor grievances – something else was lacking in the plot line specifically but it’s hard to explain what.
A solid read, but not one likely to stick with me long term.
Thank you to Inkyard Press and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
Happy reading, folks!
Baltimore Bibliophile 