Slow Dance: A Novel
“Rainbow Rowell, in her trademark beautiful storytelling, weaves together a narrative of love, of loss, and of the hope for joy. Her characters are real and complex . . .”
Shiloh is coming to terms with her life as a 33-year-old divorcée with two young children. She doesn’t hate her kids’ father, but she doesn’t love him, either. That’s what happens when trust is broken. He turns up late—again—to pick up the kids, which makes Shiloh miss her friend Mikey’s (second) wedding. But it’s okay. She’ll go to the reception. She bought a new dress, anyway.
She still hasn’t figured herself out, even at this stage in her life. She always thought she was good at deciding things, at making things happen, but she’s starting to realize that might all have been wishful thinking, because “It was funny, almost, how poorly Shiloh had built her life—especially for someone who had once prided herself on her ability to make decisions.”
She had one friend, at least—Tom, from work at the children’s theater—but she can’t get past the knowledge that she just doesn’t like people. She doesn’t want to date, she doesn’t want to put herself out there. Can’t life just go on as it is?
But she knows it can’t, and she knows she has to start somewhere, and this night it was to go to her friend’s wedding. Cary wouldn’t—couldn’t—be there. Right? Wasn’t he out on the ocean somewhere? But no. She looks across the room at the head table, and there he is, Mikey’s groomsman. Her high school friend—and more. They stare at each other across the sea of wedding guests.
“Shiloh had been imagining this moment since she got Mikey’s invitation—but she hadn’t known how to picture Cary. He wasn’t on Facebook. He didn’t turn up in Google searches. She kept picturing him the way he’d looked in high school—in his ROTC uniform, weirdly—even though she’d seen him since then. . . .”
Shiloh and Cary had been best friends—along with Mikey—in high school but hadn’t talked now for over a decade. Would he be the same? She doesn’t know. And she isn’t sure she was ready to find out. She can’t help thinking back to those days in Cary’s car.
“Cary always drove, and Mikey sat in the passenger seat, and Shiloh sat in the middle. She leaned more on Cary, because leaning on Mikey would feel weird. And also because it wouldn’t bother Mikey.”
The wedding reception starts their relationship all over again. Shiloh and Cary want to continue with what they’d always hoped would happen, but Shiloh can’t help getting in her own way. There are too many memories, too much baggage bogging her down. Cary wants to move past it, but she doesn’t quite believe he can, no matter how much she wants him to. But they both know they have to try. No matter how long it takes.
Rainbow Rowell, in her trademark beautiful storytelling, weaves together a narrative of love, of loss, and of the hope for joy. Her characters are real and complex, moving far beyond formulaic or cookie cutter people. Shiloh and Cary are surrounded by family, especially their mothers and Shiloh’s children, who give the story depth and a sense of obligation, love, and struggle readers will be able to relate to. Shiloh and Cary are not the stunningly gorgeous and physically perfect models of many romance novels; instead, they are realistic, flawed, and the sort of people readers will be able to recognize from their own lives.
Slow Dance is a beautiful story that leads the reader through Shiloh and Cary’s pasts, weaving their broken lives together as their present takes shape. Readers who enjoy character building and complicated, messy relationships filled with love and hope will enjoy Rowell’s newest work.