I saw someone reading this book on instagram and thought it looked good, so bought it a few weeks later. I'm lucky that I can often afford books when I want to just pick them up. I also do like to support authors of colour, especially black authors, and I'm lucky I can afford to do that too!
So this book was the brain child of Dhonielle Clayton, who I have not yet read anything else by. It is set in a New York black out and has a bunch of different characters, all of whom are connected but they may not realise exactly how. Each set of characters has a love story and they are all SO CUTE. All of the characters are black, I think, which was great to read.
The main characters are Tammi and Kareem. They both turn up for the same internship and just as they're getting stuff sorted the black out starts. They used to be a couple but have broken up. Tammi had different plans for the two of them post school and for college, but now she's got plans of her own to get out of the city. Hence the internship. But now she and Kareem need to walk back to Bed-Stuy together. Tammi is still angry at him but also full of regrets...
Next, two boys get stuck together on a subway train. They kind of know each other - and had an encounter in a gay club not too long back. JJ knows that Tremaine is very claustrophobic so he breaks them out of the train and gets them to safety. I loved this story, I could have read a whole novel about these two!
Two girls meet at the home one of their grandparents lives in. He knows they will hit it off so sends them off on a wild hunt around the home. Lana and Tristan are in the library when the black out happens and are trying to find their favourite books of all time. Lana has a huge crush on Tristan but daren't tell anyone. Her two dads had a very meet cute beginning to their relationship and Lana really believes in love. A girl visiting from North Carolina or something has a crush on one of the boys in her class, who she's also travelling with, but there's the problem of her boyfriend... And Seymour and Grace meet when he's her cab driver trying to get her to Bed-Stuy for a party - the same party that Kareem is supposed to DJ at.
Between each story we go back to Tammi and Kareem and watch them trying to make their long way home.
It's an interesting concept for a book and I think it worked really well; I liked the back and forth and the little vignettes. I loved the setting of the black out and how it made familiar things unfamiliar. I liked how New York City looked through all of the characters. I'm giving this five out of five, I loved it!
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