Review: Really enjoyed it
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 16, 2014
I enjoyed the crap out of this book.  Yeah, there were some things that made my eye twitch, but on the whole this was a good little story that pretty much delivers what I like most in contemporary romance.The main characters: I liked how the author made them three-dimensional.  They were distinctive and had discernible traits.  I didn't always like everything about them. but that made them even better for me.  Loved the contrast between the effervescent Toni and the cranky O'Donovan.The conflict:  I enjoyed the basic romantic conflict of the story.  At it's core it is a class conflict story, which I always enjoy.  O'Donovan has strong reservations about getting involved with Toni.  Mainly because of the parallels he draws between Toni and his ex-wife.  His concerns are not without merit.  There were some aspects Toni's self sufficiency (or lack thereof) that kinda bugged me in the same ways they bugged O'Donovan.  His misgivings power a lot of the conflict engine and it is really effective because the author really shows us his struggle.  He has an idea of the woman he wants to marry and have babies with and settle down in Long Island with and it isn't a young, rich, flighty ballerina.The writing:  Which brings me to what made the story work so well for me.  The author did a lot of showing rather than telling.  Yeah, there were some tics that bothered me, I think the author overused a few words sometimes  -- I think at one point Toni 'giggled' about three times in one scene.  But on the whole the writing was clean and brisk and I got really absorbed in the story because I felt involved.  There was one scene of Toni, Annata and Christophe enjoying some recreational weed (sidenote:  I ain't gonna lie, I kinda loved that Toni liked to break out the mary jane once or twice).  The scene worked so well because I could actually see/hear how relaxed, and high and zen they all were their kinda-slurry, talking-without-filters conversation.  It found myself kinda nodding along.Took a star off because I thought the preoccupation with every thing SEX tended to obscure some of the storytelling and I got impatient with it  Luckily that only really takes up the early part of the book and the rest of the book settles in nicely.Really good book.