First Love

First Love is James Patterson’s 2014 young adult novel, co written with Emily Raymond. The novel is one of Patterson’s experiments outside his standard thriller territory, with the central focus being a coming of age road trip story rather than the action and crime plotting that his thrillers reliably deliver. The story follows Axi and her childhood best friend Robinson, two teenagers who decide to take a road trip across America before high school graduation makes their lives diverge in ways neither can fully predict.

The road trip framework gives Patterson and Raymond room to develop the central romance and the wider coming of age material that the genre rewards. The various encounters along the road, the slow recognition between Axi and Robinson that the friendship has become something more, and the wider questions about what comes after high school all unfold across the page count.

First Love stands somewhat apart from Patterson’s more typical YA work like the Maximum Ride series and the Confessions series, with the focus on quiet emotional development rather than action plotting giving the novel a different flavor. For longtime Patterson fans curious about his range, the book is an interesting departure. For YA readers who want literary contemporary fiction in the road trip format, the novel delivers what the genre promises.