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When his girlfriend of three years dumps Hugo, she decides to let him travel on his own using the gift of train tickets she had bought for the two of them before the breakup. They live in Surrey, England, and she is headed off to college in California, whereas he — and his five siblings who are famous in the whole region for being septuplets — is going to be staying put and going to the university in town. With his five siblings.
The previous couple’s plan had been to fly into New York and take a train all the way to California, making a few stops along the way. Hugo decides to go on his own — “on his own” being a very strange and unusual term to describe anything he does — but there’s a problem: All the reservations are in his ex-girlfriend’s name. So one thing leads to another and he takes the crazy step of seeking online for another Margaret Campbell to travel with him so the tickets don’t go to waste.
Mae Campbell, who lives in the Hudson Valley in New York, is about to head off to college in California herself. She loves making films and applied to the film program at USC, but while she got in to the university itself, she didn’t make the cut for the film program. She’s still reeling from the loss, but she’s determined to make a new film that will get her in. When her best friend sends her an email linking to Hugo’s search for a travel companion, she takes a chance and goes for it.
So Hugo finds himself taking a trip across the United States with a completely different Margaret Campbell. His intention was for each to use the tickets and have an adventure but not to spend time together any more than necessary to do the check-ins along the way, but the two click. They talk, they see the sights, they fall for each other. Mae encourages Hugo to follow that little voice inside that’s telling him he wants to do something on his own, not as one part of a “six-pack,” as he says, even though he loves his parents and siblings a great deal. Hugo encourages Mae to put more of herself into the new film she starts making.
They have one week. So little time — but, as it turns out, just enough to make big differences in both these young adults’ lives.
Field Notes on Love was absolutely charming. Jennifer E. Smith captures so well the feelings and concerns young people have at this age, just finishing high school, leaving the nest and looking toward the future, the great wide world that’s there, the excitement but also the nervousness about all the choices and the potential for things to go wrong. I love the families who are the supporting cast here: Mae’s two dads and her grandma, who cheer her on and encourage her to dig deeper and live life (particularly her grandma, who is a big romantic at heart and has plenty of stories to tell her about how she fell in love in various impossible situations as a young adult); Hugo’s parents and five brothers and sisters, who are always around and always have been defining parts of who he is, and who love each other like crazy. The conversations among them all rang true to me and were sweet and fun. All of it was such an enjoyable journey for me as a reader. I’ll be trying out other books by Smith now.
Rated: Mild.There are just a few instances of mild and moderate language; sexual content is limited to intense kissing.
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