Description
Description
A bright, beaming power ballad of a novel from Rainbow Rowell--the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Landline, Fangirl, and Eleanor & Park--Slow Dance tells the humorous and heartbreaking love story of best friends Shiloh and Cary from their inseparable teen years to their far-flung adulthoods as they try to figure out what their relationship is, where it went wrong, and how to finally make it right.
Growing up on the wrong side of Omaha, all Shiloh could think about was getting away. At least she had Cary in the meantime. Cary to put up with her, Cary to make her laugh. Cary at sixteen, built like a stick of gum and driving his mom's beat-up station wagon. He had it worse than Shiloh did. Only their friendship got Cary through high school and when Shiloh went off to college, he joined the Navy.
That was fourteen years ago. Now Shiloh's thirty-three and feeling like she never did get away. She's back living in the same house she grew up in. She's working in a theater, but not onstage like she'd planned. And she's divorced, a single mom just like her own mother (minus the revolving door of boyfriends).
When a high school friend invites Shiloh to his wedding, the last thing she wants is to catch up with the old gang. But she buys a new dress, puts on some makeup, and pins a silk flower over her heart, hoping--and also worrying-- that she might see Cary, the boy she never realized she loved until he was lost.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"Who can deny the absolute, dizzy pleasure of loving a novel so much that you cannot bear to put it down, that you want to do nothing but keep flipping pages, that you want to immerse yourself fully and not come up for air until you are finished. I read Slow Dance in just that way, breathless and weeping. There is no one better than Rainbow at creating flawed, deeply human people. I loved every page of Slow Dance, a book that is romantic to its core, and as funny and smart as its wonderful characters."
-- Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author
"If you, like me, think thirty-somethings methodically working through their issues is very hot, Slow Dance is the book for you. The people in it feel like people you know or may even people you've been. Slow Dance is sexy, sweet, wise, and nostalgic - Jane Austen's Persuasion for our times."
-- Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
"Deeply human, profoundly romantic. Rowell tackles the challenges of love lost and rediscovered with nuance and candor. She will break your heart and you'll thank her for it."
-- Leigh Bardugo, New York Times bestselling author
"[Shiloh and Cary's] dance is sweet and sexy, and Rowell draws out the whole, simmering affair as she ping-pongs through her characters' past and present, step, together, step, together. . . Superstar Rowell's first adult novel since Landline (2014) is big news, and this romantic one is sure to be a crowd-pleaser." -- Booklist (starred review)
"A gorgeous book. Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell is a beautiful, believable love story between two slightly broken people. It was so sweet, but never sentimental. I yearned for them to be happy, and I miss it now it's over." -- International bestselling author Marian Keyes?
"A will-they, won't-they second chance romance for the ages, this one is poised to be one of summer's breakout hits." -- People
"Rowell takes her time revealing the couple's origins as high-school besties, the conflicts they helped each other through as teens in working-class families and those they're dealing with now, the long period of silence between them, and the undeniable glimmers of their enduring mutual attraction. Their dance is sweet and sexy, and Rowell draws out the whole, simmering affair as she ping-pongs through her characters' past and present. . . . [Slow Dance is] sure to be a crowd-pleaser." -- Booklist (starred review)
"Rich, real, and emotionally raw, this satisfying contemporary is sure to impress." -- Publishers Weekly
"Rowell pulls off this impossible premise with great charm, and her depictions of the couple's sweet courtship and their later compromise-filled marriage are equally unsentimental and knowing." -- The New Yorker on Landline
"Rowell is talented enough to be uncategorizable. . . . Landline belongs to a genre of its very own." -- New York Times
"Her writing swings from profane to profound, but it's always real and always raw." -- NPR on Eleanor & Park
"The funny, wised-up dialogue, the tumultuous, sweet, and sexy love story is grade-A Rowell . . . a book that readers will find almost impossible to put down." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Carry On
"Perfectly mixing sweet romance with deliciously tart wit, Rowell's literary debut is a complete charmer." -- Chicago Tribune on Attachments
Publishing Information
Publishing Information

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