Review: Liked it, but too much telling, not enough showing.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 29, 2013
Well, I liked the premise of the story, liked the characters, even liked the storyline. It was an enjoyable read on average, and I wanted to like it more, except I found myself skimming often once I passed around the 25% mark. My main problem was the author "telling not showing." I don't want to hear about their interactions, I want to read them and have feelings and perceptions about them myself. I don't want to hear about what they talked about and did, I want to read their dialogue and actions alongside it. When these moments happened, I liked them; unfortunately there just weren't enough of them. I genuinely liked the two MCs (and even the secondary characters) but my connection with their story was stifled by the fact that I was being told about things instead of seeing/reading them for myself. Yes, there was dialogue, but it just felt too sparse. I also felt like the author should have included their wedding vows, since it seemed at the moment to be a really important part of their interaction (an example of telling us about it but not actually showing it).I also felt bogged down by too many descriptions of their daily dry life dealings or descriptions. This is where my skimming came into play. But perhaps these scenes wouldn't have felt monotonous or dry had it not been for the sparse dialogue (which improved only toward the end). Now with the improved dialogue toward the end, I was finally enjoying more of their conversations, but then the story ended. I could have used an epilogue, not because the ending was necessarily bad. I liked how things ended. I would have liked an epilogue just to make up for the lack earlier in the book, because I was finally feeling like the "showing" of the story was coming together. But the story itself had a lot of potential, so with a little work and editing, I can see the author's future books being better and more enjoyable.*Note: I got this as a Kindle freebie on Amazon*