A Walk in the Sun

A Walk in the Sun is an endearing romance that tugs at the heartstrings ever so slightly. Grief hits people in different ways, strengthening some and breaking others. Rose Darrow is the former. She's still dealing with the loss of her mother when we pick up her story. Not only that, but she has a dad who has all but checked out, leaving a teenage girl to run the family farm lest they lose it. Not only is it a big responsibility, but it's the one thing holding her back as she graduates high school and her friends go on to bigger and better things outside their small town.

In comes Bodhi. He left his broken home at a young age to wander the country taking temporary jobs, mostly on farms. He feels more at home in a barn than just about anywhere else. But, he also feels stuck, like it's time for a drastic change - a new adventure that will start at the end of the summer.
What he didn't count on was meeting someone he'd be willing to stay for. His love for her is a bit like insta-love, but it takes quite a while for either of them to admit their feelings and their entire relationship is overshadowed by a ticking clock. She knows he's leaving. He knows he's leaving. There can be no future, right? Not when Rose has a duty to her family.

Bodhi helps her work through the remaining threads of grief as she helps him move past the things that have happened to him. It's a relationship based on mutual support. The chemistry between them is well-done and Rose is the kind of character you root for with every ounce of your being. She's strong in the face of everything life has thrown her way. She's eighteen-years-old and having to make hard decisions about her future. Her loyalty to her family and the family business in endearing.
I liked Bodhi, but there's not as much of a connection there. That might be because things with Rose get more personal, but I didn't feel for him in the same way.

The true star of the show here is the setting. The author does a wonderful job of putting the reader in small town America and making them feel like part of the family. For those who've never lived on a farm, there's a romance about it that's taken apart here. Some scenes seemed idyllic, but the story paints it in a much more life-like fashion with hard work and commitment.

The story is very long and moves forward quite slowly, leaving the reader behind occasionally with it's seemingly inconsequential scenes, but it picks up in the right places and ends in an exciting fashion. I couldn't imagine a better conclusion that the one we were given. Happily-ever-afters are complicated and don't come without conflict, but at the end of the day, they are just about the sweetest thing in literature.

A Walk in the Sun is an enjoyable, sweet romance that highlights some of the harder parts of life with an adept skill, giving the reader plenty of awe worthy moments they can truly relate to.

YA Contemporary, A WALK IN THE SUN is a sweet story of a girl who is grieving because of her mother's death and a boy trying to escape a haunted past. It's a massively entertaining and engrossing tale that starts with two paths and ends in one. Let's dig in.

First of all, I have to point out the setting. My gosh, I have never known such things about living in a very rural area/small town. It's nice to read the descriptions and it's even nicer to be taken to a whole other place.

Rose Darrow is a girl going through the motions. Nothing is ever the same after her mother's death, and her father is not coping well either. She is empty, cold, and different. Everything seems down and about until she meets Bodhi, who changes the entire dynamic of her home and her life. She lives again, and that is the main point of the story. To begin again and not just survive but also live. It is to believe that good things can happen again even after all the darkness.

And there is Bodhi Lowell. He is running from his past, and it is a terrible past at that. He's trying to escape, and he finds good in Rose Darrow. Though Rose is the more prominent character of the duo, I find Bodhi much more easier to empathize and understand. He is, at first, an outsider peering into Rose's life until he becomes a much larger part of it. Both characters change because of each other and their experiences, and they cling to each other. (So adorable those two characters are, by the way.)

The story unwinds slowly but steadily. The exposition provides a very nice opening to the book, and the tone of it is rather sorrowful (especially on Rose's end but also on Bodhi's). When the two characters meet, everything changes. It is as if a light has been switched on, and happiness, laughter, and all the good things in life comes into the book, and it's a glorious shift in tone to read. Though the two characters go through internal drama, family drama, drama stemming from romance, and drama because of grief, they are stronger because of it. They are hopeful. And the change is well-written and absolutely exciting to read.

The romance brings together two people who are lost in their own ways. One, in grief. The other, in escapism (by traveling frequently and never looking back but not quite settling in one place). The pair have great chemistry, and I swear that I smile at certain moments and scare other people because of it. ("Why are you smiling at a book?" Because my OTP is adorable. "Wait, what? What's an OTP?" One true pairing. "Huh?")

The ending is a perfect conclusion to not just the story, the romance, but also the individual character arcs. I can't end the book any better. This ending is so satisfying with all ends tied up and a HEA to boot.

Overall, A WALK IN THE SUN is a character-driven story that starts with melancholy and ends with the most important thing of all: hope. This is for anyone who loves a story of moving on but also never forgetting the ups and downs of life.

Rating: Three out of Five