Review: Good read, even if annoying sometimes
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 04 30, 2014
Compared with the second book, the characters and their emotions seemed much more realistic. More life-like than staged. I appreciated that.The tension ramps up a little in this book because now Stella decides Joshua is all she wants, but he suddenly isn't sure if he will have her. In one way his actions make sense, considering his misunderstanding and hurt, but he does act overly mean about it... kinda uncharacteristic of him... but one understands the author is trying to ramp up tension and add drama.While Joshua takes his turn at character-changing, Stella becomes practically perfect in every way (which is actually kinda nice... I was starting not to like her in book two...). She returns to her normal helpful self, comes clean with everyone, and behaves very decently to "Satan in a bonnet" (who actually adds a nice extra touch of drama and conflict to the story).One is almost to the end and wondering what will happen, when all the sudden, in the last dozen pages,**spoiler alert****don't read unless you want to know****Or have already read the book and are interested in my viewpoint**Okay, so one is almost to the end and wondering what will happen, when all the sudden, in the last dozen pages, Joshua decides to court her, holds her hand, kisses her, proposes, and they set the wedding for a couple months later. It just seems too fast. Too hurried. Too unrealistic. More based on emotions and the thrill they get from kissing, than from a deep knowledge of each other's character. I was disappointed by the speed and way it happened, even as I was glad that they were finally together.Oh, and Joshua decides that it has been the Lord's will all along for their marriage, so her parent's don't argue with it, because they don't want to go against the Lord (I mean, come on! how naive is that? I've known girls who were sexually abused because the guy knew it was the Lord's will, so they went along with it). I mean, it is good to know the Lord's will for relationships, but the way the book was about it made it seem more like Joshua's will fluctuating back and forth, but he said "God's will" because that carried more weight.All-in-all, I enjoyed the book, appreciated how the story turned out, but didn't care for every way things were written/presented.