Helena Hill

I received a free ARC from the author in a giveaway. This did not affect my review in any way.

Read on my blog.

Can you believe I actually read this book in one day? I can't.

Long Steady Distance was pretty out of my comfort zone with the sports and religious themes, but I ended up liking it much more than I expected. Both the main character, Emily, and the love interest, Sophie (who is biracial with a black father and white mother) felt like real people with real personalities and interests. I admit that a lot of the track terminology was frustrating at first, but I got used to it after a while and it was interesting to follow these girls to their competitions.

I especially liked Emily's personality and her motivations and interests when it came to running-but-not-competing, and some other things. I also loved the side characters (bless Rhys, honestly. also Sophia's brother) and I loved that there was a supportive teacher figure who was always on the side of his students.

I must say that the plot felt a little predictable at times - when the two girls started dating somewhere halfway through the book, I was constantly waiting for something to wrong, and eventually it did, in a very similar way to what I expected. Still, there were some positive surprises towards the end, and this is where I'm going to include a spoiler-y paragraph.

This book also nicely illustrated the fact that overprotective parents who leave their kids little freedom are unfortunately very likely to end up with their kids lying to them. Watching Emily's lies pile up was sort of like a trainwreck, but she and her mother were both at fault for how the situation turned out.

I was really hoping for a twist where either Emily comes clean to her mom before Beth can do her damage, or maybe when Beth outs her, her mom stands up for her/tells Beth off for very clearly blackmailing Emily? I mean, she pulled Emily's personal stuff out of her bag, so I feel like the adults could have been more concerned with that. Still, Emily's mother ended up positively surprising me when she stood up to the pastor, and it turned out that she was actually mad about the lying, not really about her daughter being gay.

I felt like the book wrapped up nicely - in the last few pages, the resolution of several conflicts was neatly shown at once without it being forced (e.g. the mobile phone and the driving). I was a little sad about Emily still having to change schools, but it felt more realistic that she had to compromise and didn't win every battle. (Or at least not at once - I really hope she further gets to explore her faith without parental pressure in the future.)

Also, little sisters are great. Sometimes.

tw: religious homophobia in a few (not many) scenes, main character gets outed against her will, couple of uses of the word homosexual… (más)