Slow Dance by beloved author Rainbow Rowell (Attachments; Landline; Fangirl) is a story about having and losing love, and whether two people can return to each other after their lives diverge. Readers meet Shiloh in the mid-2000s, when she's a 33-year-old divorced mom contemplating a life of wrong decisions--none more regrettable than her distance from Cary, her teenage best friend and first love. The two reunite at a friend's wedding and start with surface-level talk about his time in the Navy and her job, kids, and divorce. As they settle into a familiar rapport on uncertain footing, they navigate resurrected feelings and the knowledge that their connection was never as deeply buried as they pretended it was.
Slow Dance toggles between Shiloh's and Cary's points of view in their past and present in an intimate exploration of how people change and stay the same. "Cells get replaced in the human body every seven years. So that's two full iterations since 1992. You don't have any cells left that remember me," Shiloh tells Cary, to which he responds, "I'm pretty sure my cells remember you, Shiloh." The novel is nearly unbearable in its relatability, and will remind readers of the teenage desire to be big and unknowable ("It was impossible for Shiloh to imagine ever getting over herself"). It is a story driven by the self-conscious authenticity of two ordinary people finally allowing their enduring love into the light. With tenderness and charm, Slow Dance describes what happens when someone finds their person, within a life and in a place where they'd rather not be, and how moving forward from calcified hurt is possible, given the brevity of life. --Kristen Coates, editor and freelance reviewer