Review: Your average contemporary novel
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 15, 2014
Favorite Quote(s):“I’d wondered before if we were kidding ourselves with the idea that things between us could ever be as good as they were before, and it was true. We couldn’t go back to the way things were, and it would never be the same as it was.”Favorite Character: Jake. He was persistent.First Line:“When I first set foot outside the airport and got a taste of the fresh South Carolina air, I felt like I could finally breath again.”My Musings: If I’m going to be completely honest, this was yet again one of the books that I took an interest in mainly because of the cover. I know, very shallow of me. But then with the synopsis, I just had to give it a try. So when Ellie granted my review request, I was so excited!This Time Around follows Nora as she ventures back to her home town four years after college for her best friend’s wedding. But of course, still residing in that town is the guy who broke her heart four years prior. But Nora is determined not to fall again. But when everything she thought happened proved to be false, will Nora finally give into the temptation?Nora was a good character. She was spunky and devious. I enjoyed her resolve to not fall for Jake when she journeyed home. I always like it when the girl puts up a fight and doesn’t instantly fall into a guys arms swooning. But unfortunately, it didn’t last as long as I would have liked. Regardless, it was refreshing for a bit!“Even though he’d told me he loved me and promised to make it work, he’d clearly had a change of heart. That had been his way of ending it. What else could it have been?”Something that I didn’t like about her, though, was the fact that she was an assumer. She assumed about almost everything, and it was kind of irritating at times.“‘Jake,’ he chuckled, ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that love doesn’t make any sense? Sometimes when you meet the right person, you just know; and you stop looking for anything else ’cause you know you already found her.’”I don’t have much to say about Jake. I mean, he was an okay character, nothing really extraordinary. He was determined, though, to get Nora back. He really came a long way from the teenager that he was four years prior.“The feel of the cool coastal breeze on your face, the quiet shade of the towering live oak trees, and swinging off a rope into the refreshing water of the river on a hot day…there was nothing quite like it.”Something I enjoyed about this novel was the setting. My oh my! The way that the setting of the story was described was beautiful. It was easy to picture the places in the novel in my head. I was a nice touch, seeing as it wasn’t the most intricate writing in the world. But if there’s anything that Ellie Grace is good at, it’s writing a fantastic setting!A few things I didn’t like. There was a bit of info dumping at points throughout the novel. Not too much to where it was overwhelming, but it was noticeable. But I think perfecting it will come with time! Another this was that it was a very dramatic novel. So much to where it was kind of corny. Definitely had some rolling my eyes moments. That was probably in part due to the excessive use of exclamation points. That’s what really bothered me. It made it seem as if they were telling everything they said. This novel was also more sex oriented than I thought it would be. At first it wasn’t, but once they got together, there was more than I thought there would be. It was just strange to me.Overall, This Time Around was your average novel. It wasn’t, or course, terrible, and it is something I definitely would recommend for anyone who enjoys NA contemporaries. But it wasn’t extraordinary either. The potential is there, and I can’t wait to see what else Ellie had up her sleeve.