In Lauren Myracle's The Infinite Moment of Us, we meet Wren. A senior in high school who's about to graduate. She's lived a pretty sheltered life, and up until now, she hasn't even had a boyfriend. Now that school's over, though, she's decided her life belongs to her and nobody else. She's finally going to make choices on her own, which include deferring college for a year and setting off to Guatemala as a volunteer for Project Unity, where she'll be teaching English to young children. 
 Those choices also include finally giving in to her crush on Charlie Parker, a boy from school who just may have a crush on her, too. 
 The problem is that Charlie's life hasn't been easy. Abandoned at a young age by his neglectful mother, he's bounced from foster home to foster home, never letting down his guard long enough to let anyone in. But now he's found a home with foster parents Chris and Pamela, and a younger "brother" named Dev. 
 Throughout the summer before Wren's set to leave for her year in Guatemala, she and Charlie grow closer...and as with all young relationships, there are slip-ups, and stupidity and tantrums and confusion and all the drama that comes along with it, all leading up to the end of summer when both of them need to make a choice. 
 Stay or go? 
 Wren--who's finally doing something for herself--isn't ready to give up her independence. And Charlie, who's been searching for a family his entire life, doesn't want to give up the one he's found. But neither Wren, nor Charlie, can imagine living without each other, either. 
 So what will they do? That's the question... 
 *deep breaths* 
 I was so excited for this book. Really, really excited. I'm a sucker for the promise of swoon. Which I think sometimes creates unreal expectations in my head for how a book should play out. I want everything to be perfect and fluffy and lovely, and I want to float on a cloud of swoon until the very last page. But when I first opened this up, I found Wren a little awkward--which should have been easy for me to identify with. But it wasn't. It was just odd. It was difficult for me to follow her thought patterns, and eventually some of the conversations of these characters, too. I stuck with it, though, hoping it was just me being tired. 
 And I will say this, it got a little less awkward. In some places. Mostly toward the end. And Lauren did follow through on that whole swoon thing, because Charlie was sweet and I liked him a lot, but it was all still very...strange. I don't know if I can really explain it other than to say I don't think I ever fully connected with Wren the way I would have liked, which is probably why I felt disconnected from the story rather than immersed in it. I found Wren to be a bit bratty (only child syndrome), and Charlie, while super sweet, annoyed me in spots as well. I know, I know, they're teenagers. They're supposed to be bratty and stupid, but I still felt like maybe it was overdone for the sake of making them seem young, even while they participated in a very quick-moving, adult-like relationship. 
 In the end, I don't think this book fulfilled its promise of being deeply sexy and achingly romantic in the ways I'd hoped. 
 And while we're discussing endings...this one made me woeijfwoiejfowrijorijworjowei. Just when I'd finally felt a little bit invested, it was over. Just like that. If you've read my reviews before you know Caren doesn't do open endings. I need prettily wrapped boxes with ribbons and bows, and I don't want to be the one wrapping them! Epilogues are our friends!