This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Kelly Allen
Anna is in her 30s and even though she is playing the internet dating game, she is content with life and has a job she adores. She is popular at work, has several close friends and is endearingly unaware of how attractive she is.
This is a world away from her life as a teenager, when she was bullied for being overweight and different. Anna still feels she fits this mould, and truly doesn’t understand the male attention she receives.
When she decides to face her past and attend her school reunion, it is obvious that nobody recognises her. As she plans to leave, she is forced to face the one person that utterly humiliated in her last moments of school, James Fraser.
Luckily for Anna, he also doesn’t recognise her. Anna is relieved, but when they later meet on an important work project, Anna tries her best to hide her true identity. However with lies mounting up and the two of them becoming increasingly close, surely something is bound to go wrong?
Anna has to heal and face truths she never thought possible, and above all decide whether somebody like James can really ever change?
This book was so easy to get in to. It has just the right amount of characters to keep track of and a very heartfelt story of a girl who was bullied at school and is trying to live a normal life after a near tragic event. Anna was extremely loveable, and her lack of awareness of her beauty made her even more enchanting and unique. She came across as a really strong personality, but not without her own set of weaknesses and demons to face.I also really enjoyed the character James. Even with his backstory and the amount of hurt he caused Anna, I still felt for him in some parts of the book. He came across as quite a typical – perhaps stereotyped – male character; one who takes a while to admit to being wrong and finally saying sorry. However, he was also sensitive to his own feelings, mainly when it came to his wife and Anna, but towards the end of the book he seemed to be thinking about others a lot more too.
The chemistry between Anna and James was well written, but, for me, the dialogue was not as good as it could have been. Sometimes conversations felt stilted and I felt more comfortable reading the descriptive parts of the text.
This book was engaging and smart, however, for me, stronger dialogue would have given a better impact all round.
A funny tale of romance and forgiveness.
7/10