Review: An emotional rollercoaster
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 8, 2014
In the early 80’s, Sarah and Emerson fell in love, and then Sarah fell out of love. Now years later, Emerson and Sarah live hours apart, but when Sarah’s life hits a bump or two, which seems to happen often, a call to her best friend Emerson helps her get through the day. While their relationship is beneficial for Sarah, poor Emerson is stuck hiding his unrequited feelings from Sarah for fear of losing her forever.Sarah’s life drama only gets worse when she runs into big trouble with her job and her drug dealing boyfriend. When she reaches her breaking point and has no idea what she is going to do, Emerson shows up on her doorstep like a knight in shining armor to rescue her.  Taking the opportunity to start all over, Sarah heads to Syracuse with Emerson and his roommate Rashid. Once in her new home Sarah is going to have to get serious about growing up before she hurts any more of the people she loves.Sliding Past Vertical is an emotional rollercoaster. Author Laurie Boris has no qualms with making her readers’ hearts ache and then their blood boil all within a couple of pages. Her ability to manipulate our emotions is in large part due to her carefully crafted characters.  It’s easy to get wrapped up in their drama and connect with them on a deep level.  I enjoyed watching all of the characters as they battled with their pasts and tried desperately to carve out a future that would allow them to be happy productive people.While the character development was excellent and the plot was quite compelling, I felt the ending went way too fast. There was so much lead into this crucial moment for all of the characters that I felt when it finally occurred, it was over in a blink. I wanted that moment slowed down and for each of the characters to simmer in the role they played or didn’t play, before they started to figure out how to move on.Don’t let that one small criticism slow you down from giving this great book a read. If you are a fan of character studies about everyday people struggling to connect with other people and find their place in the world then Sliding Past Vertical is the book for you.(This book was provided to Compulsion Reads by the author for review.)