Review: These glimpses are honest.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 5, 2014
I am not a huge fan of the romance genre but I gave this book a chance because it caught my eye as something different.And it is different than other romances I've read. I give the author a lot of credit for trying this approach, too. The title of the book is appropriate, because it's written in a stylized format that provides mostly Glimpses: each section is roughly one page long, no paragaph is more than two sentences, and the sections alternate between the present and the past. This must have been a huge challenge for the author to tackle, because it involves a lot of structural detail that must have taken forever to sort through. And it raises the question: by providing a million glimpses, are we able to get a good view of the whole?For the most part, yes. I found the characters down to earth and believable, which is important to me. I liked them, they didn't seem fake, and that's not something I always get from a romance. Their lives were not glamorous at all: he was a blue collar worker, she is a teacher. They both have issues. They don't always say pretty things. These people live lives I can relate to. That's interesting to me. I was really pulling for Harleigh and her boyfriend Shaun to be able to work things out. These are good things.The problem is, because of the way the book is structured, it becomes a bit repetitive in spots. Further, although I like the situation and the dialogue sounds genuine, because of the paragraph limitations, given the haiku like format, I honestly had no idea what these characters look like. It's more like reading a book in radio rather than video. I can't see them in my mind, because we are never offered that much detail, and I guess I'd like to know more. For example, I want more description about Shaun other than that he wears socks that have holes in them. What does he look like? What features about him does Harleigh find attractive? Also, we read about numerous short situations, but because each section is confined to a page, everything that happens is given equal weight and nothing can stand out more than anything else, especially because the structure dictates we'll be going back to the past in the next section.That said, this is a quick, pleasant read, and the structure allows you to move along at a fast pace. I'm glad I caught a glimpse of Glimpses and I look forward to reading more from Erin J. Munz in the future.