Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥
Written for a time when high school reunions were a thing, and people didn't all just create facebook groups and check each other out from their computers.
Short, sweet, predictable.
They were high school sweethearts, he breaks up with her before the prom and that apparently emotionally scarred her for the intervening 10 years before their high school reunion. When they reunite again, he admits he was an ass and wants her back. She is snippy and plays hard to get for like 5 seconds and then its all roses and rainbows.
It was a nice little story and a good way to spend a couple hours. I read it less than 5 hours back but it's already fading quickly from memory. To amuse myself, I shall do some nitpicking.
Issues:
1) He realizes somewhere in those 10 years since high school that he had made a mistake and she was, in fact, the Girl of His Dreams. So what did he do? Nothing. He does absolutely nothing. Do these people not have email or a phone? Are they on Facebook at all. I understand that they were in the pre-fb generation, but any normal human would naturally LOOK UP THE GIRL OF YOUR DREAMS on fb once you have joined, no? Not even a poke? Who are these adorable dummies?
2) She's kind of a loser. Lost her job as an assistant. She's described as "one of the smartest people he knows". In 10 years her professional contributions seem a little weak. Not saying she has to be a rocket scientist or high powered business woman, but she just didn't seem like she even liked her job. Can a smart cookie not find and keep a job she marginally enjoys?
3) She seems not to have made a single friend in high school who she's excited to meet at this reunion - which btw occurs on a three-day cruise to Cabo San Lucas. Why does she even go? Not to see him apparently, because she checks to make damn sure he isn't coming before signing up herself. (He, meanwhile, waits till he knows she has signed up before getting on the list. Yes. Very romantic/stalker-ish.)
4) No heat. Like at all. The sexy-times have all the slickness of an 18-year-old who got ditched by her boyfriend at prom who then writes a book about what her 10 year reunion would look like when he finally comes to his senses and tells her he never stopped loving her. Sorry hon, that is a dangerous fantasy. Also it is very doubtful that your reunion would take place on a fancy cruise - its is far more likely to take place in your high school gym over pizza and paper cups.
Anyway. I didn't hate the story. It was just sort of meh... Like a filler, so if you happen to be between two emotionally charged, exhausting stories and you just need a break between those this might be a good pick.
Skeptic scale: ♥♥♥
For every girl who's downed a pizza (or eight) after breaking up with The One
I wasn't blown away by this but I didn't hate it either. It was one of those middle-of-the-road ones that had its moments but didn't really sink in and make me want to trade lives with the h or anything.
She: Chick who's gotten her life together after a long battle with obesity and wants to go back to her hometown to celebrate her success with a quick fling with her then bad-boy boyfriend. This is a big deal because she hasn't felt confident enough to get intimate with anyone since him because she put on a bunch of weight and generally lost her mojo when they broke up
He: Small-town guy and former bad boy whose plans to get out into the Big City are smashed due to difficult family circumstances including bad marriage, disabled child and money troubles. Yikes.
Conflict: They come from different worlds and she has to choose between staying in the town she grew up in and her new life in the big city aka Detroit.
It was kind of interesting reading about the h's problems with weight. The tone was a bit too squishy and old-school romantic so when there were modernisms such as the author's use of "fuck", they just seemed horribly jarring and discordant with the generally old-timey tone of the book. Not that I mind rough language, you understand, it's just that the whole rhythm didn't quite match up.
Also, it seemed the the h went through a fat-phase after her high school romance with the H, and the breakup was one of the reasons for her spiral. But they meet again after she gets that part of her life relatively under control so he only hears about her issues from her later. It was unclear to me how the fat-theme really drove the story forward except to show that she made some big changes to take control of her life and becomes a better, more competent individual for it. She didn't really seem like a happier person for it, because she's obviously looking for validation from a boyfriend she had like a million years ago. But I could be reading too much into things.
Also, the hero was a bit too beta for me. He seemed to have been defeated one too many times by life. Mostly he was just really passive and hadn't really done anything except keep his head down and be all stoic and work-horse-y which isn't my favorite. But generally it was an ok read, the writing was fine and I didn't hate it.
