Review: Lovely story of true love
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 19, 2012
Karen's Best Friend was a wonderful story of how the love between friends developed into a deep love between a man and a woman. Karen, who was widowed ten months earlier, and her daughter, Cindi, moved In with Jim, who had known Karen for 14 years as a platonic friend, in order for both of them to afford a nice apartment. Karen wanted to be able to complete her college education and Jim wanted the freedom to write a novel. Other reviewers have already written a synopsis of the story so I'll just say that the relationships were very believable.All of the people had well-rounded, complex and three-dimensional personalities and the dialogues were completely authentic as well as fun to read. The imagery was fantastic, especially the descriptions of Montreal, Venice, and New Orleans; they were so graphic and realistic that I felt like I would know exactly where to go (and what to eat), if I ever visited them. The writing was very well done but the editing could have used a good proofreader. However, the errors were not bad enough to interfere with the flow of the story.I really admired the way that Karen refused to tolerate any form of abuse from Mark and stopped the relationship immediately when the abuse became physical. I only have two small criticisms: there was no translation of the French when there was a quote from Beaudelaire and when Karen and Jim did become intimate, there was no mention of them using protection.Overall, I enjoyed reading this story very much and I would definitely recommend it. I'd give it a grade of A-.