A To Z Book Review: You With A View By Jessica Joyce
My letter “Y” pick for the A to Z Reading Challenge was YOU WITH A VIEW by Jessica Joyce. This is a sweet and moderately sexy romance that will wrap around you like a warm hug. We start by meeting Noelle Shepard, who is currently unemployed, living with her parents, and grieving the loss of her beloved grandmother when she discovers decades-old photos of Gram and a man (who isn’t her grandfather) tucked alongside a love letter. She creates a TikTok to search for the mystery man, which goes viral, and she’s shocked when his grandson responds—a man who happens to be her high school nemesis, Theo Spencer.
Theo’s grandfather, Paul, was once madly in love with Noelle’s Gram, and shares that they had planned to elope and take a honeymoon road trip – but it never came to be when Gram bowed to pressure from her family about marrying a photographer and not a man with a stable job. Noelle is a talented photographer in her own right and dreams of someday making a living at it. Her TikTok features her work, and is getting some attention since her viral post. To ride that momentum, she decides she’s going to recreate Gram and Paul’s never taken road trip with Paul’s permission, posting TikToks with the photos along the way. Paul agrees under one condition, he and grandson Theo have to come along for the ride.
Theo and Noelle were constant rivals in high school academically and in sports, but now there’s an entirely different electricity going on. It’s not hard to see where this is going, and Paul does his best to push them together at every turn. Along the way, he shares love letters Gram had written him, along with more of their bittersweet story. It’s a heartfelt book with no real surprises, and there were some unresolved questions at the end, but a good book despite that. It would be a perfect read for any road trip. Three stars on this one.


