Review:when We Collided by Emery Lord

Vivi is spending the summer at the California beach town of Verona Cove. She’s there only a week and she’s in love with everything about it. And when she goes to work one day and sees a cute boy sitting outside the place she works, well, it’s about to get even more perfect.

Jonah has always lived in Verona Cove, just as his parents did. Everyone knows him, and his parents, and his siblings. And his dad’s restaurant. And that his dad died of a heart attack six months ago, shattering everything.

Vivi knows none of this; she doesn’t look at him with pity.And Jonah doesn’t know Vivi’s secrets, and she’s glad about that, so she won’t push him with questions.

Jonah and Vivi meet; and the collision shakes them both up, shaking secrets free. Before I gush, it’s not perfect. Vivi, who spends much of the book building up to or in a manic phase of her bipolar disorder, is as dazzling to the reader as she is to Jonah. And this means that the dual narrative structure suffers a little because so much of your attention is focused on her to the detriment of Jonah's sections. Emery Lord has said that she wanted to write a love story in which mental ill health played a part but was not the focus. I think she got as close as anybody could to achieving this but I also think that for most readers, the takeaway will be all about mental ill health and how it affects the loving relationships all teenagers are looking for. This may not be what Lord really wanted but I think it’s a positive and not a negative: an illumination and a conversation-starter at the very least.

But There’s so much to enjoy. Vivi being Vivi, she has launched into a love affair before Jonah has even managed to register much more than that she is beautiful. There’s no build-up of attraction - it’s a tornado of first love and it’s a beautiful and engaging whirlwind to read as Vivi drags Jonah out of his interior life and into the impulsive, colourful world she inhabits. Seen through the eyes of both boy and girl, Lord captures the overwhelming nature of first love perfectly. And it’s no pity party. Lord doesn’t duck Vivi’s self-absorption and how her erratic behaviour impacts negatively on both herself and those around her. Neither does she miss that keeping family problems secret, as Jonah does, can act to prolong the problem and delay recovery.

At its heart, When We Collided is a compassionate story. Bipolar disorder and depression are integral to the path this story takes but they don’t entirely define it. Nor should they. They complement and complete each other; and they help each other; and they fall in love.One of the things I really liked about Jonah, or rather, Jonah and Vivi, is their oppositeness sometimes caused friction. At its best, it was “oh I love her outgoingness, I love his reserve, but at other times, frankly, they became annoyed or frustrated with one another. And sometimes, Jonah needed to shake out of his premature adulting; and sometimes Vivi needed to be reminded that rip tides do exist. But other times, it’s just their personalities. Neither is wrong, both are true to themselves. Often times I thought, these two are not going to stay together. And they shouldn’t.

And finally the last thing I loved about this book. Emery Lord wrote a love story about two teens who are perfect for each other at this point in time not forever.