Krysten’s Review

I am a little confused. How did this book get so many 4- and 5-star ratings?

Okay, so it’s not awful. It just isn’t as wonderful as most reviewers seem to think it is, for the following reasons (written in the style of the book’s opening).

1. It starts out with a to-do list. A TO-DO LIST, for crying out loud. Gee, what a hook. I don’t even want to read my own to-do lists, let alone someone else’s.

2. It’s written in present tense. I cannot stand books written in present tense. It just feels awkward and amateur.

3. The characters are flat. The only one I liked 100% was Quinn… he wasn’t a total stereotype. His jokes were funny, and he seemed genuine. Ben and Jo had absolutely no development, Selah was a typical cougar and nothing more, Ryan was basically just arm candy. Obviously Prescott spends more time on Gil and Maggie, but they too are slaves to their stereotypes.

4. The conflict isn’t conflicting enough, and the ending (heck, the whole book) is predictable… Gil tells Maggie he loves her (which, by the way, was so expected it wasn’t the revelation Maggie seemed to think it was), and Maggie freaks out (typical, by the way). So what? It wasn’t like “I love you, but I only have 3 months to live.” See, THAT’s not expected. That’s a REAL conflict. In any case, everyone knows they’re going to end up together. I don’t even feel like I need to put that in a spoiler tag. You know that going in.

5. The writing is amateurish and the dialogue is uninteresting. Prescott transcribes conversations from beginning to end: “Hi. Hello. How are you? I’m fine, you? Great. What do you want to do today? Let’s go hiking or out for lunch or sit on the beach or play a game. Oh, a hike sounds good. No, I don’t want to go on a hike.” For crying out loud, SUMMARIZE! No one wants to hear an entire conversation, because the bulk of most conversations (or at least the beginning and end) is boring and awkward. That, and the fact that Prescott doesn’t seem to understand that we, the readers, are not inside her head and can’t tell which of seven people are talking when she puts the “so-and-so says” at the very end of a monologue. First I found myself skipping ahead to the end of the speech and then going back, just so I knew who was talking… then I found myself skipping entire conversations because they are downright BORING.

6. It seemed to me that Prescott was trying to sound smarter than she actually is by using a thesaurus. How many ways can you write “so-and-so says”? It’s OK most of the time just to use “says.” Prescott uses not only says, but asks, enquires, whispers, answers, agrees, calls, hums, purrs, pouts, comments, whines, adds, greets, and a couple dozen other verbs that half the time don’t even make sense. And don’t even get me started on when she adds adverbs too. Also, I found cases in which she used words she thought were right but were actually wrong. (A prospectus to describe Selah’s love interest, for example.)

7. She uses “The End” at the conclusion. Unless you are writing a children’s book or a fairy tale, no professional author would ever do that. Ever. Don’t insult your readers; the back cover will alert them to the book’s end for you.

Prescott’s simplistic writing style really took away any chance this plot had at succeeding. I mistakenly thought that, since it had such great reviews, it would turn around for the better at some point. Nope. It’s a love story, and you know what’s going to happen… so take my advice and skip this one.