Review: Heartwarming romance!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 13, 2014
Mr. Good Enough by Jamie Farrell was a really heartwarming contemporary romance story. I read the book summary and thought I knew what I was getting into. When you read enough romance books you start to see trends and at the beginning of the book I thought, “I bet it is going to go like this….” and then it didn’t. It was better.In Mr. Good Enough we meet Trent Sawyer, the town’s high school basketball star and Maddie Mason, geeky girl who had a crush on Trent in high school. They are all grown up now.Trent left town for reasons you will read about while Maddie stuck around. In the opening scene Trent is back and boy is the town all up in arms about it. After all, they all thought he was dead…There is so much going on in this book with many of the characters it is hard to put it all into one review without giving things away. Why should you read this book, though? Because it is a real love story. Real as in things like this happen in life more than some stories we read to get away from reality. It’s almost like this book is someone’s reality. It isn’t the super flashy, over the top, sexy romance story, but a solid one that you feel good about and can really relate to.Trent and Maddie screw things up a lot. They say the wrong things. Do the wrong things. However, they do these things to protect themselves and don’t we do that a lot in the real life? Yes. And surprise, neither of them feel good enough. Relationships in real life aren’t fixed because of a few apologies and neither are they in Mr. Good Enough. I felt so hopeless for Maddie and Trent at times. I cried with them both. But, I watched them get up and put one foot in front of the other and figure out how to fix things with each other and their family the best they could. They both surprised me how much they were willing to give up for the other person once they finally were brave enough to be vulnerable to one another.Jamie writes a great story set in a small Midwestern town. Her characters are what make the story. Not just Trent and Maddie but the rest of the people in town. They all have their issues and it was entertaining to read about them and see how they all fit together. If your emotions can handle a bit of a rollercoaster, you will be rewarded with a very sweet happy ever after. If you are looking for a good, solid contemporary romance to read, I recommend you try Mr. Good Enough.