CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS:
I really wish I were one of those people who could give a book 5 stars based on writing alone. Because, let me tell you, this one would probably get 6 stars for the writing. The writing in this book is gorgeous and thoughtful and stopped me dead in my tracks more than once. The story is compelling, and the setting is like a main character in itself.
Unfortunately, my literary preferences don't tend toward the writing, or the story, or the setting. I can appreciate all of these things when done well, and any book that does them all well is probably going to automatically get at least a 3-star rating from me. But my literary preferences tend toward characters, and this book was seriously lacking in that department.
Let me get this out of the way: I don't care if characters are unlikable. I don't care if they're so skeevy that I literally feel uncomfortable reading the book while they're on the page. I do, however, care if I have no idea why they are the way they are. I need to know what makes them tick. I need my characters, if not totally realistic, to at least be believable for one reason or another. In this book, I found the main character extremely boring half of the time, and extremely whiney the other half of the time. She's whiney when she goes on about how much she hates being from a small town. She's boring when she constantly ruminates on how she no longer believes in her life plans and considers staying in Bridgeton-- to me, that kind of thinking shows a complete lack of spark. Her whole life she's had these plans, and suddenly she's going to throw them away because of a relationship with a guy who's hardly worth the sacrifice? She doesn't think they'll work out if she leaves. I don't know why she doesn't see that that, in itself, is an answer to her question. We're going to break up if I go after my dreams... something's not right here. [In this vein, I'd just like to say that I really enjoyed the parallels between Rebecca and Amelia and their respective boyfriends, and how they're both on the cusp of going after what they really want and yet something is grasping at them with the claws of dreams deferred and lives unlived.]
Which brings me to my next character issue: James. Dude was seriously overbearing and prickly and just did not sit right with me at all-- which would be fine, like I said, if I had any idea why he was this way. I know that his mom died of cancer. This is a fairly short book, and it kind of seemed like on one page James was all sappy about having been there when his mother died, or not having intended to hurt Rebecca when he broke up with her, and then on the next page he was back to telling Rebecca what to do and not caring at all what she thought about anything. I get that this was to sway the reader's trust away from James, in preparation for the almost-surprising plot twist at the end, but it ultimately just left me wondering what Rebecca even saw in him. As a love interest, he wasn't appealing at all.
The same goes for Luke, who was basically exactly like James, except a little more out of control.
The only character in this book I really thought was fully fleshed-out and interesting was Amelia. She knew what she wanted, and she never once considered giving it up for Luke. She even knew that if he wasn't happy for her, she didn't want to be with him anymore. I even feel like I understood her feelings for Luke more than I understood Rebecca's feelings for James because she completely trusted Luke. It never seemed like Rebecca truly trusted James, which got in the way when it came to buying/understanding her hesitance to leave Bridgeton because of him. Amelia was going to tell Luke her plans to go after her dreams no matter what he thought of them; Rebecca was about to tell James her plan to abandon her dreams. James's redemption came when he told Rebecca he wanted her to go anyway, because he didn't know where he'd be. Rebecca's redemption came in the epilogue, when it had been years since she'd even seen James and we learn that she had left Bridgeton and never gone back.
As for the plot, I felt it was kind of slow. I ended up skimming the second half of the book (the second time this has happened to me this week!), and I thought a lot of the "In small towns" chapters, though wonderfully crafted, were slightly unnecessary and distracting. As was the whole thing with Craig, which kind of just seemed like a device to add drama to an already dramatic story.
To end on a positive note, let me just reiterate that the writing in this book is showstoppingly, devastatingly beautiful. It's definitely worth reading if you're not a stickler for characters like I am... heck, maybe even if you are.
★★★☆☆
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