Review: A Good Book that Could've Been So Much Better
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 14, 2014
"Angel in the Saloon" by Jeanne Leach is a book that I completely enjoyed yet there were some issues I had with the book.Let me start with the positive aspects of the story. I found the way that a woman who had such a disability but yet is not bitter, angry or looking for any kind of pity from others, instead she is an independent woman who wants to do as much as possible for herself, but also knows and understands her limits completely. She is not a foolish woman when it comes her disability but she doesn't allow it to control her completely.I must say that for this being a Christian story, I found the setting to be so out of place, but yet it was toned down thankfully for the type of book, and well I think the setting really worked for this story as well. I am not sure if I can put it into words why I think that this setting worked like it did, but it sure did open up character's eyes which really helped in a lot of ways of course. I think too that frankly this book really helped make this reader at least, look at saloon's a little differently for the time period instead of how they are always portrayed in historical fiction.I found it interesting too how it was shown that there is good and bad in everyone, Christians and Non-Christians. We see this clearly in the book with some fairly certain examples, yet the good that came out of the bad were amazing.Now for the sad part of the review and that is the negative. I don't like writing bad things but I believe in being honest since I never know if the author is reading this. For a free ebook that I got from Amazon sometime ago and just got around to reading, I have to say that there were a few grammatical and spelling errors. I think someone other than the author should have proofread the book.I had a real issue with the age difference as well between the hero and heroine. I understand that this is a different time, era and way of doing things but if both of them were a little older it wouldn't have been such a big deal. At least the younger character was out of their teens, but frankly it bothered me at the ages that the characters were for it just seemed a little creepy to me. One nice thing though that made it tolerable for me some was the fact that the younger one at times acted their age with innocence while having an understandable maturity about them. The older character also acted their age, yet learned to relax some. Because the characters acted their age and yet not is why I didn't just put the book down when I realized the May-December relationship developing with the ages they are.I also was sadden to see that the characters, main or secondary, were not all that well developed like I think they could have been. I think there is such potential for these characters to have been developed deeper with a few more flaws that stuck out for one was a little too good, while the other we only get a glimpse at a few flaws.Lastly it was confusing at times with whose point of view was being expressed for it seemed to jump around at times.This is a book that I will enjoy rereading in a few years I am sure for it was not worth deleting off my kindle for there were some meaningful messages there to be taken away from the book. I hope others enjoy this book.