Review: The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

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.

My Review:

I've been excited for this book since I read and loved Pivot Point by Kasie West.  I went out and bought my copy of this the day after it came out.  I had to start reading this as soon as I finished the book I had been reading, and I loved it.  I flew through the pages.  After reading this book, I can now officially say that Kasie West is one of my favorite authors ever.  I adore her stories and characters.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

Caymen was a fantastic main character.  Her voice was something that really made this book amazing.  She was funny and sarcastic, and she definitely had a sense of humor.  She did judge Xander at first for being rich, but that was because her mom had raised her to think that all rich people are bad.  Once she got to know him, she didn't think that being rich made him a bad person.  She sometimes didn't understand how his family could just accept the fact that he was dating someone with less money than they had.  By the end of this book, she realized that he could still like her even though she didn't have much money.

Caymen and Xander are so adorable together.   He is a very sweet guy.  The dialogue between these two is great.  I love their "career days" and how he always took a sip of her drink before giving it to her.  These two start out as friends and their relationship progresses realistically as they both fall for each other.  There are some misunderstandings, like when Caymen thinks Xander has a girlfriend because a magazine printed a story about him that wasn't true.  Eventually, these two finally kiss, and it is so adorable and sweet.  I loved how Xander said they were the same because neither of them really wanted to go into the family business like their parents wanted them to do.

Caymen is friends with a girl named Skye who is sweet, and they have a good friendship.  Skye and her boyfriend, Henry, try to set Caymen up with Mason, a boy in a band with Henry.  This relationship doesn't really work since Caymen likes Xander, so Skye stops trying to make Caymen be with Mason.  She can tell that it is really obvious that Caymen and Xander both like each other, so she wants those two to be together.

Part of this book also focuses on the mother-daughter relationship between Caymen and her mom.  Caymen has never met her dad since her mom got pregnant with her as a teenager.  Caymen's dad left when her mom said she was pregnant and Caymen's grandparents disowned her mom.  There are some parts of this book where Caymen becomes suspicious that her mom is hiding some things from her, and she is right.  Her mom has been keeping some secrets from her.  Caymen and her mom both do care about each other, and there are some good scenes with them.

If you like YA contemporary, read this book.

Katie