Review: Loved the concept, but not the execution
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 14, 2013
I’m conflicted about this book:  while I love the idea of a romance novel that explores issues of US immigration and illegal aliens, there are things about this book that I didn’t enjoy.Ana Tavares is an illegal alien who falls in love with a wealthy widower while tutoring his son in Spanish.The positives:  the situation of the heroine, Ana, is believable and well-plotted (a news story recently described a similar case:  an Arizona police officer, with over a decade of service as a detective, was forced to resign when she learned that she was an illegal alien – her family told her she was born in the US, when she actually was brought here as an infant).The problems:  Too often, the author tells us about the problems instead of showing us with details.  For example, Ana seems to endlessly draw comparisons between others’ lives and her own (others have bigger homes, others have more privacy, others have more security, others have safer neighborhoods, others have more money, etc.).  While all this is true, it interrupted the story for me and felt heavy-handed.  I would have preferred to draw those conclusions for myself as details were shared of specific situations and conditions.  Similarly, for my tastes, conflicts in the novel are too easily resolved and troubles are resolved and wrapped up neatly with a bow.  At the end of the book, the ease with which secondary characters resolved their conflicts had me rolling my eyes in disbelief, and throughout the novel, Theo’s reactions to Ana seemed overly sweet and accepting for an actual teen-aged boy.  Finally, while I believed in the physical attraction between Ethan and Ana, I’m not sure I fully understood how they so quickly developed love and affection for one another.  I’d have preferred a story that devoted more time to then working out the very real and difficult challenges they faced AFTER the wedding (and that may be why I found the Epilogue so unsatisfying).In the end, I wish the author had trusted the reader more and been a bit more nuanced in developing the story.