Review: Great story line, too much extraneous detail
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 16, 2013
In one way, The Race Is On is truly a marathon (although the relevance of the title to the actual story escapes me). When this book came out, I went back, as I normally do, and re-read the preceding story, Same Page. And while I certainly appreciate a lengthy story that gets into the characters' thoughts, emotions, and motives, after a while I found myself skipping pages in this sequel, thinking "Get on with the story, please." Several times in this second book, I felt that the author just couldn't stop herself from providing in excruciating detail every touristy visit made or what felt like showing-off of multiple names of musical artists and their songs. I eventually found myself skipping these pages. For someone who is into musical artists and their songs, this would probably make a great play list. And if the reader was familiar with any of these songs/artists, they might admire the author's extensive list of such. However, after a while, it felt like someone had Googled a certain song type and then just injected as many names of songs/artists as they could. A few of the songs were relevant to the storyline; listing so many just felt like too much.It was made abundantly clear in Same Page and even more so in The Race that the two main characters are smitten with each other. After the umpteenth time of this being re-affirmed, I again felt almost like saying "I get it!! Move on." And while the sexual appetites were active, sometimes less is more.All that said, the author's method of naming each character and then presenting their viewpoint, even with some repetition of a scene so that the reader saw each point of view, was a good way to relate the story. I thoroughly enjoyed the story/plot; I just felt bogged down with an overload of what seemed like extraneous detailed descriptions. And I kept waiting for a new dog! Perhaps with the addition of Nate, this will happen. It will be interesting to see what story comes next or if the muse has finished with this group.