Review: What You Wish For (by Katherine Center)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

What You Wish For is the third book I've read by Katherine Center and while I enjoyed it well enough, my favorite book of hers so far is still Things You Save in a Fire from last year, which I felt was a much better written and more emotionally resonant story.  

This time around, the story revolves around Samantha Casey, a librarian at an elementary school on the island of Galveston, Texas.  Sam arrives at the quaint little school a few years ago after spending most of her life alone in California.  The school's founder Max and his wife Babette are beloved figures in the community and despite having a daughter of their own, they welcome Sam into their school as well as their home, becoming surrogate parents of sorts to her.  When Max dies unexpectedly, a man named Duncan Carpenter is brought in to replace him as principal of the school — it turns out Duncan is a former colleague of Sam's from her previous school, but not only that, she also had a huge crush on him back in the day.  The Duncan that Sam knew was sweet, funny, charismatic, and beloved by everyone (a personality very similar to Max), so despite her conflicted feelings, Sam tries to convince the faculty at the school that he is the right man for the job.  But she soon finds out how wrong she is, as the Duncan who shows up is stoic, stiff, completely devoid of humor, and super obsessed with school safety, almost to the point of paranoia.  When Duncan threatens to make significant changes to the school, Sam decides  to oppose him and, working together with the rest of the faculty, a plan is hatched to save the school.  At the same time, Sam finds out the truth of what happened to Duncan in the years that they lost contact — this revelation, along with a secret about her own self that she had been hiding, alter Sam's perspective in ways that she didn't anticipate.  

This is a romance, so of course the love story between the two main characters— in this case, Sam and Duncan — will undoubtedly be front and center.  Given the premise, I expected there to be a certain amount of predictability to the story, which is fine.  What felt different for me with this book compared to Center's previous ones is that there didn't seem to be as much emotional depth to the story this time around.  Yes, there were difficult subjects and issues the characters had to deal with, just like in the rest of her books, but I felt like much of it just scratched the surface instead of exploring more in depth.  Perhaps it is because of this that I didn't feel much of an emotional connection to the characters or to the story.  While I liked Sam as a character well enough, sometimes she did behave immaturely, which did annoy me a little bit.  In fact, with some of the scenes and dialogue, I kind of felt like there was a bit of a YA vibe to the story and the writing, which I wasn't expecting — though it (thankfully) didn't permeate the story, it did make the writing feel uneven in places.

Overall, this was a decent read — lighthearted, fun in certain places, a bit sappy in others.  I also found this one to be a bit dialogue-heavy during some of the more emotional scenes, which had the effect of taking me out of the moment at times — another reason why it was harder for me to establish an emotional connection to the story.  As I mentioned earlier, I like Katherine Center's previous novel better, but this was one I didn't regret reading.  And of course, I definitely don't mind reading more of her novels either!

Received ARC from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley.

Review: Things You Save in a Fire (by Katherine Center)

My Rating: 4 stars

After reading a slew of suspense thrillers the past few months, Katherine Center’s sweet romance Things You Save in a Fire was a welcome respite from all the “heavy stuff” that has defined my reading world recently.  Romance usually isn’t a preferred genre of mine, but I needed something light-hearted and uplifting and after reading the summary for Center’s latest work, I was hopeful that this would fit the bill of what I was looking for.  Barely a few pages in, I already knew I had made the right choice — not only did this book fit the bill, it actually ended up being a book that I enjoyed way more then I expected.  

From the very first page, where we are introduced to Cassie Hanwell, a young female firefighter getting ready to accept an award for her valor and service at a banquet in her honor, I immediately took a liking to her character.  As the story progressed and I got to know Cassie on a deeper level —  her vulnerabilities when it came to love due to a bad experience in her past, her struggles with forgiveness toward a mother who abandoned her many years ago, her devotion and dedication to a job that she not only adored but also excelled at, her drive to prove herself and overcome the prejudices of colleagues in a line of work that traditionally has been dominated by men — I grew to love her character and wanted to root for her every step of the way.   I love stories with strong female characters that are realistically drawn (meaning they have flaws and vulnerabilities that make them relatable to ordinary folks like us) and this book had plenty of them — Cassie’s mother Diana and her neighbor Josie were two other characters I adored and found myself rooting for.

Story-wise, this was one of those books where, as a reader, I already knew going into it that the plot would be predictable and that there would be a guaranteed "happily-ever-after" ending for the main character, but I was perfectly fine with this because the lovely process of getting there was what defined the experience for me.  The story had a wonderful balance of the humorous and the sentimental to it that made me laugh out loud one minute but get teary-eyed the next minute — a balance that occurred naturally to the point that it appeared effortless.  One of the things I always hope to experience when I read fiction is emotional resonance, which this book absolutely delivered.

This is actually the second book I’ve read by Katherine Center, as I read her previous novel How To Walk Away last year, but wasn’t tremendously keen on it.  With that book, one of the main issues I had was the execution of the story — it felt a bit too cliched and contrived for me, with some parts bordering on melodramatic, which made it difficult for me to connect with the characters as well as the overall story itself.  With Things You Save in a Fire however, the vibe was very different — it was sweet, sentimental, and yes, a little sappy at times, but it was also equal parts fun and uplifting.  I guess the biggest difference was that this one felt so much more authentic and heartfelt, which made an emotional connection easier to establish.

For a cynical reader like me who usually won’t gravitate toward a sentimental romance, this book definitely won me over!  Romance fans definitely shouldn’t miss this one but I think non-romance readers would enjoy this as well.  

Received paperback ARC direct from publisher (St. Martin’s Press) as part of the “Booked Up All Night” early reader campaign.

#tysiaf  #thingsyousavebook

Review: How to Walk Away (by Katherine Center)

 My Rating:  3.5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book.  While I can’t say I didn’t enjoy reading this (I actually enjoyed alot of it, very much so in fact!), there was something about the way the story was written that made it difficult for me to connect with the story and its characters as much as I think I was supposed to.  Don’t get me wrong – I did like majority of the characters, of course some more than others.  Margaret’s sister Kitty, for example, was one of my favorite characters – I loved her personality and how unconventional she was, yet she was there for her sister when she needed her the most.  Unlike most of the readers out there who were probably more touched by the special relationship that Margaret and Ian shared, I actually found the sisterly bond between Margaret and Kitty to be the most moving and also the part of the story that I enjoyed most.  Perhaps it is because I am a generally cynical person and so a “fairytale romance” like the one Margaret and Ian had in the story just didn’t feel realistic to me (the ending didn’t help either with the way it was so neatly packaged in shiny wrapping paper with the most beautiful bow on top).  The relationship that Margaret had with her sister Kitty on the other hand, did feel realistic and the way they interacted – constantly bickering on the outside yet showing through their actions how much they actually loved and cared about each other on the inside – felt more genuine than all of the romantic relationships within the story.  Aside from Kitty, I felt that most of the other characters were a bit stereotypical (yes, including Margaret, who was at the center of the story), yet despite that, at the end of the day, I couldn’t help liking these characters even though I didn’t connect as much with them on an emotional level as I typically would have.

In terms of the story itself, I actually found the plot a bit too contrived and predictable, with too many coincidences and in some sections, it felt like too much drama was created unnecessarily – by the end especially, it felt like the author was trying to pile as much drama on as possible, which, to me at least, had the unintended effect of causing confusion and contradiction with some of the plot points.  There are some books out there that are written expressly to convey a particular message and to me, this book felt like it fell into that category, as the message that was being conveyed through the story – a message about hope, resilience, love, courage, etc. -- seemed to matter way more than the actual plot and maybe even the story itself.  Perhaps this is why, despite the fact that I felt the story was a bit cliched, the plot a bit too predictable, and some (not all) of the characters were somewhat stereotypical, I still found myself drawn to the story and not wanting to pull myself away.  Indeed, this was a quick read, one that I was able to plow right through in more or less two days.

Basically, I would say that I liked the story overall as well as the characters (most of them at least), but unfortunately was not keen on the execution.  While it’s true that from the getgo, I had some understanding that this book would be a relatively lighthearted, “feel good,” uplifting read and I guess from that perspective, this book did its job and then some – though to be honest, I felt the author went a little “too light” in some places that perhaps should have been more serious.   Also, there were some consistency issues where it felt like some things were overexplained while others that should have been explained more were glossed over.  I think if this book had been more tightly written, less cliched, less predictable, it would have been a more emotional read for me, and a more memorable one as well.

Overall, I did enjoy this one – parts of it at least – but felt like it could have been so much more.  I would still recommend this book, though more for the “feels” rather than the plot or the writing, as I felt that both these areas were definitely lacking.  With that said though, this is one of those books where it’s best to set aside judgement and just go into without overly high expectations and see where the story leads you.   

Received ARC from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley