Review: Much better than I expected it to be
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 16, 2011
REVIEW ORIGINALLY POSTED AT REVIEWS BY JESSEWAVE, I PURCHASED THE BOOK ON MY OWN THOUGH.I stumbled upon this one by accident, as one of Amazon recommendations to me. I saw the low price and the length of the book (it is very long, on my kindle it has a little over 9600 locations) and decided that for 99 cents I may as well try it.In many ways it turned out to be a very predictable story and could have used better editing (such as some annoying typos), but in several other ways I was pleasantly surprised. The characters seemed quite well-drawn and memorable, and James, adjusting to the life in his home town and trying to get over traumatic events that happened to him in New York, was overall a sympathetic character. I wished more than once that some good editor would have cut the repetitive parts about James feeling like an outsider in anything that is taking place in the town of Lawder, because trust me, I got it after the first ten times he said it. However, despite what I just wrote, overall I did not end up wanting to slap James, quite the contrary. Maybe because after an initial period of time, he does not spend pages and pages telling us that he feels like outsider. Yes, those feelings do overwhelm him sometimes (okay, often) after he actually tries to fit in, or after he actually does things with his friends, or helping his mother with his extended family, for example, but the angst, even if it is repetitive sometimes, is not too long a page chunk at a time and it usually mixed in with something happening. I liked that James tried and tried hard, and that his efforts eventually succeeded.And it was actually quite a pleasure to read about James forming friendships with local guys and them helping him as well. I was especially interested to read about James' friendship with Brick. I would characterize their relationship as one step forward and two steps back, considering that they did not have the best past behind them. This relationship was actually another interesting development of a very familiar trope to me. I am not sure if I liked that Brick's change of heart and character improvement was mostly told rather than shown because it happened before James returned to town, however it was extremely interesting to see how James sees New Brick versus Brick of his school days and how he notices all the differences. I really, really loved what we saw as Brick of today -- insecure, regretful, and at the same time really changed man, who treats people around him well and actually has enough dignity to insist on the same treatment back.Some of the secondary characters were also lovely. I loved James' friendship with Cory, even if the story line could have been handled with more subtlety in my opinion. And James' mother stole my heart from the first time she appeared on page.In short it is what I would call a small town romance, with a lot of good people all around and the character getting one big happy family at the end. As a New Yorker, I did not care for the rather heavy contrast between good people in small town versus shallow people in New York in James' thoughts, but you know how sometimes you want that Awwwww feeling at the end of the story? This one will surely provide it and with interesting characters. I enjoyed James and Brick's journeys.