Sweet Edge — Alison Pick

A realistic portrayal of the world of urban twenty-somethings, The Sweet Edge tells the story of a young couple who decide to go their own way for the summer in order to figure out their relationship. Ellen chooses to work in a trendy Toronto art gallery, while Adam takes a solo canoe trip into the Arctic tundra. The two characters alternate chapters and points-of-view: the reader frets with Ellen through an increasingly sweltering city, then journeys inside the young man's head as he goes dangerously deep into wilderness. Their impressions of the world around them and their partnership gradually change, until their worlds  -- and their changed worldviews  -- suddenly and dangerously collide. Pick seamlessly weaves two distinct voices and two distinct settings into a single, sophisticated whole, making The Sweet Edge a beautifully written novel about the delicate balance between love and change.