REVIEW: Two Across by Jeff Bartsch

In Two Across by Jeff Bartsch, Stanley Owens’ life is nothing but studying and proving his intelligence to his mother. She is obsessed with seeing him become a lawyer and then a senator even though he wants nothing to do with it. Stanley instead wants to write crossword puzzles for a living. So when he befriends his highly intelligent and very beautiful fellow National Spelling Bee winner, they devise a plan to circumvent their mother’s wishes for their future. But Stanley doesn’t factor in his evolving feelings for Vera which complicates everything for years to come.

‘Stanley had the book smarts of three PhDs combined, but was blind to the obvious path he should take in his relationship with Vera.’

Vera Baxter’s future has always been mathematics. But she wants to make her own way into research, not teaching. So when Stanley, the brainiac who tied with her in the spelling bee and the object of her teenage affection, says they can get their parents off their backs by pretending to get married, she readily agrees. Things are not so easy, though, and even though Vera cares for Stanley, they part ways. Leaving clues in crossword puzzles she creates later on, she hopes it will eventually lead him back to her.

“Vera, I really do love you,” he said at last. “You can trust me now, I…”

“Shhh,” she whispered, putting a finger to his lips. “Everything you say or do seems to be an act to me. It’s too late for ‘trust me.'”

Two Across is not your typical story. With elements of romance and straight up literary fiction, this novel spans at least two different decades while we follow Stanley and Vera as they struggle with life and love.

There were a couple of cool parts to Two Across that made it pretty unique in my eyes. First, this began in 1960 when our main characters competed in the National Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. That they became friends with the possibility of more thanks to that event was a fun way to start the story off. Stanley being a master at creating and solving crossword puzzles was also quite inventive. It became his life’s work and something that connected him to Vera time and time again when they used clues in the puzzles they created to get each other’s attention.

Vera was, well, not really a point of contention for me, but I just had a difficult time understanding her. She was obviously extremely smart, but when it came to Stanley she would literally run away every single time things were getting serious. It may have eventually knocked some sense into Stanley, but it was a wee bit extreme. And even though I may not have condoned their rather shady dealings, I did get a kick out of Stanley and Vera being an uber studious version of Bonnie & Clyde in their late teens.

There are two things I will warn readers about: this was written about two extraordinarily smart individuals so the story overall was rather analytical and not a ‘fluffy’ piece of fiction, and it had a bittersweet ending. I rather liked that the writing style fit Stanley and Vera’s book smart minds. That’s not to say that it was emotionless or lacking any lovely details because there certainly was both in just the right places. The ending itself was very emotional but not a traditional HEA. Things did eventually work out for our couple but in its own poignant way.

Stanley and Vera endured a very long, sometimes arduous, journey to find their way into each other’s arms. Their complicated story may be filled with ups and downs, but it also shows a lot of humanity and heart.

Book Info:

Publication: Published August 4th 2015 | by Grand Central Publishing |

TWO ACROSS is a funny and poignant debut novel about trust, forgiveness, and the wisdom of listening to your heart.

Stanley and Vera, academically precocious but awkward teenagers, form a bond when they tie for first place in the National Spelling Bee. Though their mothers have big plans for them-Stanley will become a senator, Vera a mathematics professor-neither wants to follow these pre-determined paths. So Stanley hatches a plan to marry Vera in a sham wedding for the financial freedom to pursue his one true love: crossword puzzle construction. In enlisting Vera to marry him, he neglects one variable: she’s secretly in love with him, a fact that dooms his plan to disaster. Once he’s lost her, Stanley tries to atone for his mistakes and win her back using coded messages in crossword puzzles-but can he find her again before it’s too late?