Teen Tuesday: Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith

Image: Books on Tape/ Listening Library

Field Notes on Love by Jennifer E. Smith. Unabridged e-audiobook, ~8 hours. Read by Anthony Mark Barrow and Karissa Vacker. Listening Library/ Books on Tape, March, 2019. 9781984843128. (Review of e-audiobook borrowed from public library.)

In this dual narrative, the POV shifts between Hugo and Mae. Hugo is one of a famed sextuplet living in Surrey, England. He is often overshadowed by his siblings and seeks to strike out on his own. The problem is that they all have a scholarship at a local university and his parents aren't in the position to pay for Hugo to go elsewhere. Besides, he loves his sibs. 

A more pressing problem happens when Hugo's girlfriend dumps him shortly before their planned train trip across the United States. He'd still like to go, but all the tickets and hotels were booked in Margaret's name and are non-transferable. So, Hugo advertises in search of another Margaret Campbell who would be willing to step in and share the trip.

Mae's full name is Margaret Campbell. She lives in upstate New York with her two dads. She's a budding filmmaker and is going to be heading to LA for college anyway, so she answers the ad after her beloved grandmother encourages her to live a little.

The two make an instant connection, but all is not smooth training.

This one was fun, as all Jennifer E. Smith romances are. Romance is definitely not my genre. But I don't mind reading Smith's because the romances are smart, featuring characters that are usually endearing and relatable. I've always wanted to go on a cross country train ride, so that was a draw as well. 

The two mc's were so interesting, especially Hugo. His family, especially his sibs, were a hoot. There were some holes that distracted, like Mae's dads easy agreement to send their daughter off on a train to college. I was all about moving my (4) kid(s) in when they went off—not hovering—just moving them in, scoping the situation out and saying goodbye. Were I going to say goodbye at a train station, I'd insist on meeting this roommate she's apparently going off with. Still.

I expected the audiobook to add to the charm since Hugo is a Brit and the narrator is as well. And it did. Mostly. It's just that his American accent for Mae was an utterly atrocious mix of Boston and Brooklyn. (Picked Brooklyn for the alliteration, I don't know from borough accents.) It was a generic and mildly insulting New York accent with some Bostonisms thrown in. And she's from somewhere upstate - Hudson Valley, a totally different New York accent. So, no, that got annoying and distracting. And it certainly did not reflect Mae's narrator voice at all. She did a passable job with her British accent when voicing Hugo.

I definitely recommend reading this one with your eyes. I have a ton of Smith fans and romance fans at my school, so I don't expect this to sit. Nor should it. Your romance fans will gobble it up.