If Emma Lord has 10,000 fans, I am one of them. If Emma Lord has one fan, it is me. If Emma Lord has no fans, I am dead.

This was so cute! It honestly might have won the title of my favorite Emma Lord book (an honor previously shared between You Have a Match and Begin Again.

This follows our main character, Riley, who moves to NYC the summer after she graduates high school to reunite with her long-distance best friend and complete a bucket list they had had running for years. When she gets there, to nobody’s surprise, her best friend, Tom, has gotten very attractive, and soon they’re both in denial of their feelings in order to protect their friendship. With a wondrously dynamic main couple, compelling side characters, and absurdly fun New York adventures, there is so much to love about The Getaway List.

I didn’t love Riley the first few chapters, but she grew on me and now I absolutely love her and her character development throughout this. It’s all about her learning to have the courage to control her own life and the confidence to make her own decisions—the character development is so well done, and it’s a truly well-written coming-of-age story.

Tom is a great secondary protagonist and love interest, and he honestly is such a breath of fresh air from the snarky, bad-boy love interests of most books these days. His dynamic with Riley is absolutely perfect—the friends-to-lovers trope is there, but it’s also complicated by the fact that they haven’t seen each other in person in four years and are relearning how to be in-person best friends even as they have to confront their romantic feelings for each other. You truly can’t help but ship them, but their friendship is even more important than the ship and I love that about this book.

Speaking of friendship, the secondary characters are all so wonderful and compelling. Riley and Tom amass this friend group of young adults all trying to figure out what their next steps are with all of the possibilities of New York at their feet, and I love how Riley’s coming-of-age arc is complemented by all of the secondary characters’ stories. Each of these characters has a different path from the others, but they all work together so well.

The entire friend group gets up to some wild adventures while completing Riley and Tom’s bucket list, and the story truly is just a chaotic romp through New York in a way that underscores the character development happening without overpowering it. It’s fun and hilarious and you really can’t help but smile while reading it. There were, perhaps, a few too many pop culture references, but I can forgive it since most of them were vaguer references to TikTok and AO3. I think it was a better choice than creating fake stand-in names for social media and fanfiction platforms.

Overall, I highly recommend The Getaway List if you’re in the market for a well-written coming-of-age YA story. The romance, friendship, and character development aspects of the book are all amazing, and I truly can’t talk about this wild ride of a book enough. 5/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.