Review: Testy divorce and a love triangle
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 18, 2014
This novella is the first in a series.  It has a quick pace, and can easily be finished in an afternoon.  There is a big cliff-hanger at the end of the book that sets up the drama for the next installment.The main characters, Brian and Millie , were quickly married right out of high school and immediately had their one and only child, Kate.  Millie is an acrimonious, self-absorbed, materialistic drama queen.  Although I think readers are supposed to empathize with her, I found nothing worthy about her.  Her melodrama and duplicity bring on most of her problems.  She wants more of everything, but anything her husband tries to give, she discounts or shuns.  Brian is self-destructive and could easily have been portrayed as the lovable loser, but he is too inconsiderate and angry to be thought of as lovable.  His bad habits would make any wife uncomfortable.  He makes attempts at providing the grand gestures his wife craves, but he just can’t be nice/giving long enough for them to have an impact.  Just as Millie reaches her last straw, in comes Dean—her high school sweetheart—to be the white knight.  He’s polite and helpful enough that it seemed like he would turn out to be a player.The story tries to portray everyday life and real situations—job loss, financial struggles, and marital problems.  I had a hard time reconciling Brian and Millie losing the family business and house— due to mounting bills from purchases they clearly couldn’t afford—with them continuing to spend big (dinners out, fancy clothes, drinking binges, concert tickets, etc).  I also had a hard time with how immature both Brian and Millie behaved in their relationship; although they were approximately 33 years old, they behaved more like teenagers who hadn’t moved beyond playing relationship games.  I very much disliked that Millie the drama queen never owned any of the marriage problem being her fault…and that cliff hanger is a huge problem that she owns.I didn’t appreciate the argue/make-up sex pattern in the book; the sex scenes were too much and too many.  After reading a couple of them, I didn’t feel they added much to the story line or character development.  I didn’t care for Millie’s speech frequently being described as “shrieking” and “screaming” when other adjective/verb combinations would have made her seem less of a shrew.  Although I was surprised by the cliff hanger, there will have to be some very well-written twists and turns to make the story less predictable and more fresh.Not a bad showing for a new, young author.**This review was done in conjunction with Nerd Girl Official**