Review: Expectations vs. reality
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 31, 2013
While this book is not completely bad, it is absolutely nothing like what I expected. In fact, in these terms it was actually pretty disappointing, but maybe it was the fact that I knew what I wanted to read that ended up making this book seem rather dull. As it happens, the book does not focus on the recovery process of a soldier who has been psychologically wounded by war. In fact, the book, doesn't even focus on a single character. And while I'm not opposite to several characters in a romance, the fact that most of the are not exactly relevant for the story makes it seem very slow-paced and, in some moments, even boring. Characters that had the potential to be relevant to the story end up as some sort of background/supportive characters, specially Vanderkirk, who only seemed to be in the book because it needed a contemporaneous villain to serve as an obstacle for the main couple (as if they didn't have enough problems to face).The main character, Crow Carter, had everything to be an interesting one and ended up being under-developed. He had PTSD, but sometimes you forget this because his romantic interest, Lila, drowns his story with her seemingly irrelevant problems. Okay, maybe "irrelevant" is too strong to define her problems, but comparing her dreams of building a memorial for her deceased relatives just for the sake of the whole things doesn't really seem to be more important than a guy who has served in the army and is haunted by the memories he gathered in combat.I'm not the biggest fan of how Lila was developed. I'm not into stereotypes of fragile, obstinate girls who are actually able to solve every single problem using the power of love. Wait, did I say obstinate? For most part of the book, she doesn't really know what she wants to do with her life. She hesitates and her resolve wavers at every single difficulty she finds and has several mood shifts, which becomes annoying after a while.This book is not horrid. In spite of the usual grammar errors that seem to be a constant problem for Kindle eBooks, it is actually deep and poetic in a way. But a sappy romance with lots of angst and a silly ending is definitely not what I wanted to read.