Tina's Reading Books

I found this book interesting but a little odd.

The pros:

I like the atypical professions of the hero and heroine.  She is an artist who paints large, mural sized paintings.  She gets really into her work and will close herself off and become incredibly anti-social while she is painting.  She can easily forget people for weeks at a time.

The hero, Matt works at a fishery.  Not at all glamorous.  And when he is offered a front office position rather than being on the line, elbow deep in fishy guts he struggles with the idea.  Yes it is more money, but he finds the idea of sitting on his ass incredibly unattractive.

I also liked the humor.  And the writing was clean with interesting beats.

But on the whole I couldn't bring myself to totally enjoy this.

The cons:

The romance felt perfunctory.  Matt sees Nora and is attracted to her.  He pursues.  She half-heartedly resists.  They get together.  It almost felt like they only get together simply because they have to because she is the heroine and he is the hero.

There were some odd scene shifts.  At times I had no idea how much time had passed between one scene and the next. In some cases it was hours and in others it was weeks.

The worst:

There is a minor sub plot with Matt's ex-best friend.  I found this character utterly repulsive but I think that I was supposed to find him amusing or at least the subplot with his womanizing ways amusing.  But I didn't,  and I think it made the women he got involved with look rather dumb.

This is my first book by this author and while I wasn't won over, there is something about her writing style that I find strangely compelling.  There are some quirks to it that feel fresh and I think she had some good ideas.  i just don't think they translated effectively into a great story.  I found the story oddly elusive.  While I liked aspects of Nora and Matt, I think overall the characters didn't feel completely fleshed out.  This is definitely one of those cases where I think the writing, especially the author's voice,  is better than the story being delivered. 

That said, I am interested enough in her style to try her again.