Title: The Distance Between Us Author: Kasie West
Published: July 2, 2013
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 320
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she’s pretty sure they’re only good for one thing—spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother’s shop.
So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his interest won’t last. Because if there’s one thing she’s learned from her mother’s warnings, it’s that the rich have a short attention span. But Xander keeps coming around, despite her best efforts to scare him off. And much to her dismay, she's beginning to enjoy his company.
She knows her mom can’t find out—she wouldn’t approve. She’d much rather Caymen hang out with the local rocker who hasn’t been raised by money. But just when Xander’s attention and loyalty are about to convince Caymen that being rich isn’t a character flaw, she finds out that money is a much bigger part of their relationship than she’d ever realized. And that Xander’s not the only one she should’ve been worried about.
I’ve been interested in Kasie West’s fiction for some time now, but The Distance Between Us was never high on the priority list—though I like fluff (on occasion) just as much as the next person, there was never anything about this particular book of West’s that drew me. I only picked this up because of my epic end-of-2014 library rampage, but it turns out that The Distance Between Us was just as cuddly and adorable as its fans had claimed, making this book a delight to read.
For any lover of lighthearted reads, this book is a must. Caymen Meyers works and lives in a doll shop, with her single mother who hates wealthy people after getting stomped on one (Caymen’s father). Caymen has a similar dislike of rich people, so when a dressed-to-the-nines Xander shows up in her life, she doesn’t want to give him the time of day. Except his smile is dreamy, and he seems like a pretty nice person underneath his designer trench coats and luxury cars (he has several). The Distance Between Us is a book about looking beneath the surface, and it manages to tell that story in a hilarious, upbeat way, in spite of some challenges Caymen faced.
I liked Caymen a lot. She’s incredibly sarcastic, and I imagine it’s hard to write a character with that sense of humor, but West managed to pull it off quite well, and I found myself laughing out loud at many points in the book. Aside from her sense of humor, Caymen’s also very loyal to her mother, trying to help out with the shop even though it’s far from what she wants to do with the rest of her life. I admired a lot about Caymen’s strength and individuality, and I had a lot of fun following her around for the duration of The Distance Between Us.
All the other side characters in the book were well-written as well, though I wish more would have been done with them, as it seemed like West didn’t give anyone besides Caymen and Xander a great deal of depth. This is a good story for sure, but I would have liked to see it expanded upon in some ways, for instance with Caymen’s town and what her days at school are like. Though at the same time, I was glad of a book featuring a high school student that didn’t feature monotonous scenes detailing classes and lunch periods.
Moving on from characters, Kasie West’s writing is easy-flowing and bright, which made The Distance Between Us a quick, enjoyable read. I liked how, in spite of some more serious things that occurred over the course of the plot, the book never became overly wighty or bogged down by sad things. This book did very well as a happy, breezy read, and West managed to capture that tone perfectly with her simple prose.
Overall, I very much enjoyed this book. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon and not too mentally taxing. There’s not much about it that makes me outright adore it, but neither do I have anything by way of complaint. Essentially, this was a fluffy novel that was engaging and quite humorous, but not an all-time favorite. The Distance Between Us tells a good story and features a strong protagonist, all things that recommend itself to me.
