Pack Up the Moon

Pack Up the Moon both participates in and subverts certain genre expectations of contemporary romance. A central romantic focus on Lauren and Josh’s relationship governs the novel, creating narrative tension, emotional connection, and character development that are typical of the contemporary romance genre. Joshua and Lauren’s romance has a false start in college but develops a few years later after Lauren loses her father. Higgins employs humor and individual quirks to characterize the protagonists, and these features shape their reactions as they process their love, grief, and loss. Higgins tethers each of her chapters to one of the protagonist’s perspectives, which generates emotional depth while also fostering relatability. This emphasis on accessibility even in moments of emotional complexity is a hallmark of the genre and is intended to facilitate intimacy between the character and the reader.

Higgins challenges genre expectations by employing dual timelines to add depth and complexity to the narrative. While Josh and Lauren each have chapters detailing their own perspectives, Josh moves forward in time after Lauren’s death and Lauren moves backward in time, experiencing their relationship in reverse. This structure subverts the linear narrative often associated with romance novels, providing a more layered storytelling experience. Higgins complements the dual structure with a hint of tragic irony: The reader only learns about the beginning of Josh and Lauren’s relationship at the end of the book when the timeline breaks to recall Lauren’s last day alive. The novel uses the epistolary form, a familiar trope in classic romance, to facilitate the narrative after Lauren’s death. Again, Higgins uses this trope in a unique way, having Lauren address letters to two different people, with each set of letters filling in a different side of her experience. Finally, Higgins also diverges from genre expectations by focusing on a somewhat seasoned love rather than an exciting, new love. The shared history and experiences between the characters allows Higgins to explore how love endures through grief, offering a counterpoint to more typical narratives in the genre that explore new love as a way to recover from grief.