Fourth Comings by Megan McCafferty

Finally finished with her expensive college experience, Jessica has no clue what to do with her future. She's freelancing for an obscure journal, which doesn't even begin to cover her student loans - and looking for that perfect job to come her way. Although Jessica and Marcus have reunited after his long absence, she's feeling particularly unsettled in their relationship especially with Marcus' newest decision to attend Princeton University as a freshman at age 23. And most confusing of all is that Marcus wants her to marry him (!!!). Understandably, Jessica asks for time to consider this crazy proposal from her soul mate and is given a week to come up with an answer. To help explain all her different reasons for her final choice to Marcus she decides to keep a detailed journal for the next week and therein documents all her experiences with job hunting, family drama, her relationship with friends, and most of all her conflicted feelings for Marcus.  

Even though I had gotten really fed up with Jessica (and Marcus) in the previous book, I decided to give our heroine one more chance. And I am so glad I did! Fourth Comings returned to everything I loved about Sloppy Firsts - mainly Jessica's intense daily observations (not the filtered time-warp jumps we were getting before) and time away from Marcus to just be herself. Yes, she talks about Marcus and their past, but he's not physically around for the week written about in Fourth Comings. Frankly, I still was pretty fed up with Marcus from the previous couple of books and was very glad to see him take a backseat to Jessica's running dialogue here. Fourth Comings is simply Jessica living her life without anyone trying to pull the strings. Trust me, she's drama enough to handle without all that extra added in. 

As far as development goes, I felt like in Fourth Comings, Jessica and Marcus both finally grew up a bit and really got what they needed. Oh, they are both still very young and make stupid choices - but they seem to recognize that now. There was so much character growth and overall development that I couldn't help but be enthralled with Jessica's insightful, no-holds-barred narrative. It's like Jessica especially finally became comfortable enough in her own skin to be able to do those things she knows are hard but that are still best for her. And although it couldn't have been a more difficult road for Jessica to walk, I fully love the ending Megan McCafferty crafted. Hard as it was for her to decide, it was time and I'm glad the author was able to take that crucial step.

series reading order:
~ Sloppy Firsts - my review
~ Second Helpings - my review
~ Charmed Thirds - my review
~ Fourth Comings
~ Perfect Fifths

Because Everyone Likes a Second Opinion:
Liv's Book Reviews
Great Books and Fresh Coffee review
Oops...Wrong Cookie review
Reading and Ruminations review
The YA YA YAs review

book source: my local library