Review: Enjoyable Story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2014
I received an e-copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.What I liked: I liked the whole thing, really, as far as writing. It took me a little while to get into it, but once I was past the first couple chapters, I enjoyed the progression of events. I won't recount the plot, because a blurb is available already.The main character, Dorsey, is engaging. She drove me crazy once in awhile with her knee-jerk reactions based on false assumptions, but then again, that was the point of the whole "Divorced Not Dead" workshop: trying to make changes based on what's really happening v. someone's perception of what's happening. Her character, then, was true to the story's purpose.I also liked the fact that the book was not full of editing and formatting issues. There was nothing obvious that pulled me out of the book.What I didn't like: the cover, for one thing. I received this as a .mobi file, so I never looked at the cover until I was ready to write my review. I have to be honest and say I would not have picked up this book based on cover appeal.Something else that was a negative for me: too many characters and too many side stories. There were times when I had to keep reminding myself of the speaker's identity, depending on who was talking. There was the main character, a few girlfriends, her dad & his fiance, her ex-husband, an ex-boyfriend, a HEA guy & his mother, six workshop people (I think six, maybe seven, as it was hard to keep track of all those people), and a variety of minor characters who popped in here and there. So fourteen or fifteen regulars to keep track of...and the people attending the workshop not only had their backstories (which were necessary for workshop purposes) but also current side plots which were dipped into briefly here and there. It was enough to confuse me at times as to who was angry with whom and why that was important enough to include. If the story had focused more centrally on Dorsey only, that might have helped. I didn't really care about most of the workshop characters and didn't need the distraction of their issues.Overall, though, it was a really nice book. I may simply be one of those people who has less of a tolerance for a large cast of characters. But the writing was decent and the story was cute, which is very refreshing in a self-published novel. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to others, but I can't see myself putting it on my "must read again" shelf.