Review: Humorous Attitude of Hero a bit Off-putting
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 31, 2014
"A Mail Order Bride for Charlie" is a fun, lighthearted romance; with a bit of angst.  Rebecca has been corresponding with her future husband by mail for several months...at least she thinks she's been corresponding with him.  What Rebecca doesn't know is that the person to whom she's been pouring out her heart and soul is not Grant Carson, but his mother Maggie.Poor, unsuspecting Rebecca travels to Kansas from New York to meet and marry the man she has fallen in love with...a man who does not exist.  I sincerely felt badly for the disappointment and heartache Rebecca suffered when she discovered the truth, and I did not appreciate the fact that Charlie, the so called hero of this story, found so much humor in the situation.Don't get me wrong, Charlie is a great guy, and under most circumstances I would have found his laid back, fun loving attitude sweet, but in this situation I thought his humor was misplaced.  Oh sure, Charlie did provide some comfort to Rebecca, but his overall reaction was one of humor.  Quite frankly this disappointed me.The romance between Charlie and Rebecca could have been so sweet and tender, but instead, IMO, Charlie's blasé attitude almost ruined it...it certainly made it less than it could have been.  I wanted him to be more sympathetic, more caring, more outraged on Rebecca's behalf...more of a hero.I also thought it quite ridiculous that Rebecca would commit to marrying Grant, and in just a matter of days, when it was soooo obvious that he was reluctant to get married.  At one point Rebecca thinks to herself "I had come to Kansas to find a husband and secure my future.  That goal was in sight, but why could I not feel any joy in it?  What was wrong with me?"  This she thinks AFTER she has been confronted by Grant's mistress!At that point, Rebecca seemed a bit idiotic to me.  How could she not know why she wasn't happy?  I mean she was marrying a man who obviously did NOT want to get married, and who was having an affair with another woman who he supposedly was in love with.  Duh?  Moreover, it just seemed like Maggie was pushing Rebecca to marry Grant, even though she knew her son was still sleeping with the married woman, even after he had agreed to marry Rebecca.Then there's the fact that Charlie could have been up front with Rebecca and told her about Grant's married mistress, before the poor girl was humiliated by the confrontation with that woman.  I mean he liked her and knew that Grant had no intention of giving up his mistress even after his marriage.  Why not just tell Rebecca the truth so she could make an informed decision?  It just seemed like no one had Rebecca's best interest at heart.I felt really terrible for the poor girl.  But, I couldn't understand why she was so determined to marry Grant, even after she found out about the mistress.  I understood Rebecca's plight; she really had nowhere else to go, but she made absolutely no attempt to find any alternate resolution to her situation...another groom perhaps?  Or at the very least, she should have taken more time to get to know Grant, rather than going along with the asinine plan to marry him just days after meeting him.  If nothing else, Maggie owed Rebecca room and board until she figured out her situation.  To my way of thinking, that aspect of the story defied common sense.Nevertheless, I did enjoy the book; just not as much as I could have.  I really liked the way Charlie finally stepped up and took matters into his own hands.  I thought that action on his part, nicely redeemed the mostly blasé attitude he'd had up to that point.  Plus there is so much about the book that is excellent, such as the writing, the editing, the fully developed characters, but for all that I still could not rate this book higher 3 1/2.So bottom line, if you're looking for a fun, lighthearted romance, and you like mail order bride stories, this book is worth a try.  BTW this book is told from the first person point of view, but in a unique way.  One chapter the story is told from Charlie's POV and the next chapter, from Rebecca's.  And so it goes back and forth between the two, every other chapter.  It made the first person POV, which I usually avoid, much more enjoyable, because I got insight from both main characters.  Oh and there is a love scene, but it's barely described, so I'd say this is an essentially clean romance.