WITH AND WITHOUT YOU

Siena and Patrick have been together so long their friends regard them as a single unit.

As they head toward senior year, Siena feels trapped and decides to break up with Patrick during their weekly coffee date. But Patrick has his own shocking development to reveal: His family is moving from Phoenix to Austin. Thrown off guard, Siena takes Patrick up on his offer to try the long-distance thing, presuming the relationship will fizzle out and she won’t have to be the heartbreaker after all. As the school year unfolds, the two exchange texts, schedule holiday visits, and create new social circles. The relationship Siena once saw as stale expands as well, giving her a lot to ponder as college looms. Told from Siena’s point of view, the novel takes a while to really start humming. Siena’s complaints about the perfectly decent Patrick grow tiresome; readers may check out before the worm turns and the authors start flipping new cards. Once things get going, the novel becomes a reasonably well-sketched rendering of young love evolving, but there’s a lot of padding to get through first. The pacing and character shading are the novel’s weakest points: Patrick never really pops as a real person, and Siena, desperate to figure out her new identity, comes off as whiny. She ultimately settles on a new pursuit that feels like it comes out of the blue rather than organically emerging from her personality. Siena and Patrick are presumed White.

A well-intentioned misfire.