Poppy
January 2, 2012
236 pages
add on Goodreads/buy on Amazon
Missing her flight by only four measly minutes would have been bad enough if it weren't a flight from JFK to Heathrow, New York to London, a last minute flight to her father's second wedding. Possibly late to her father's wedding (she doesn't want to attend) to a soon-to-be stepmother she's never met, Hadley is miserable.
Then she meets Oliver. Gorgeous, British Oliver who's also waiting for the next flight to London. He's even seat 18C to Hadley's 18A. Suddenly several hours spent in the airport - and then several more on a plane - might not be so horrible after all.
The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is possibly the only book that will make you wish you for an upcoming transatlantic flight just for the possibility of meeting your own Oliver and having an experience like the one in TSPoLaFS. Told over just twenty-four hours, Hadley and Oliver's story deal so well with fate and chance, of course, but also with familial relationships and love.
Hadley's relationship with her parents (her father especially) is also looked at in flashbacks that help explain how things go to where they are now. Some of the flashbacks are so good, so engrossing that it's easy to forget they're not the main story.
Any story that focuses on just a few characters in a confined setting (like an airport or airplane) for a sustained period of time runs the risk of feeling forced or running or the dialogue not working. Here, though, it's really fun. Hadley and Oliver talk about incredibly varied things which almost seem random but allow them - and readers - to learn about them, too.
It is nice that the whole book doesn't take place on the plane and allows the two to be separate for a while. We see how they affected each other, what they learned from each other (in their short few hours together) as well as how/what they think about the other when the other is not right there.
The Statistical Probability takes the beginning of a young couple's romance and shows you the first 24 hours. It doesn't smoosh and entire courtship into a single day, leaving them professing their undying love at the end . . . it keeps things realistic but also romantic. You feel the connection between Oliver and Hadley, that it's something more than just someone they met at the airport or some new friend or someone they'd like to call for a date.
The novel does an amazing job of keeping the spark between the characters obvious but without having anything rushed.
It will definitely have you feeling hopeful next time you're headed to the airport!
Rating: 9/10
Thank you to LBYR (and Faye), Poppy & NetGalley for ny egalley of this title
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