Review: Two Points-of-View Not Always Better Than One
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 14, 2014
I received FINDING HOME from the author in exchange for an honest review.The book begins well. Sam is a young college graduate  who has suffered through a bad breakup and her only real support comes from her best friend and roommate. When her new job falls through, her friend's family comes to the rescue and she travels from Boston to California to work at their winery. Ben is her roommate's brother, who has lived through a tragic loss and is not quite sure how to move forward. He and Sam meet in person for the first time and sparks fly. The rest of the novel is about their struggle to leave their pasts behind and commit to one another.When it comes to romance novels, I normally prefer books that stick to a single point-of-view. The issues I had with FINDING HOME highlight why this is the case. By alternating chapters between Sam and Ben, we know exactly how they feel at all times. This tends to undermine the romantic tension. The only mystery for the reader is when Sam will catch on to Ben's real feelings or vice versa. Even so, we might still have enjoyed an entertaining read. The characters are certainly complicated enough and the emotion is genuine. The writing itself is skilled. But the author has her characters constantly think about their feelings and then repeat those thoughts in dialog almost word for word. This really weighs down the narrative in places and sucks the drama from what should be nail-biting scenes.The author could also have taken more trouble with her setting. We're in California wine country. Ben reveals to Sam his favorite spots on the vineyard. These are places that move him emotionally, but we get only a generic description before things move on to more long stretches of "I feel" talk and some foreplay. The sexual content itself seems overly choreographed. It made me wonder whether the author added a lot of it because she thought that's what readers of New Adult fiction expect rather than allowing it to emerge organically via the characters' interaction.FINDING HOME has all the ingredients of a killer romance. Sam and Ben are great characters with rich back stories. The setting is potentially glorious. There's plenty of  opportunity for complication and misunderstanding to ramp up the tension. Ultimately, though, it just doesn't deliver that punch to the gut I search for in my reading.