Saturday, May 27, 2017

The Favor by Blaire Edens ~ Review

Source:  Received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.




Now Available from Entangled

The premise for this one is so charming.  It has a touch of pretending, which are my favorites.  So I was very excited to read it.  And it was good.  But just good.

I like Clark.  It's cute that he dresses up to pretend to be a superhero for a birthday party with a real name like Clark.  But the real Clark is much more than a superhero.  He has a fixer personality and takes on way too much guilt.  He tries so hard to make things right for the ones he cares about that he sometimes goes overboard.  But it's endearing.  And I loved him so much.

Anna is sweet and wants to keep her son at all costs.  She agrees to the fake marriage in hopes that it will turn the tide and allow her to keep her son.  The thing is, I just didn't feel like we knew much about Anna.  She doesn't have much depth.

Really the story is lacking in depth.  It's a surface story like water skiing compared to scuba diving.  There's a lot of tell not show in this book and it costs the characters.  They're too flat.  Made of pages of a book, they just don't feel real.  

The story has the same issues.  Too much of it is summarized.  There were lots of times that I was sad events didn't get experienced.  The last two weeks in the cabin is a great example.  It would have made for some great scenes where these characters battled with their feelings but instead we got a sentence or two about how hard it was.

I'm not sure if this will end up a series.  If not, I really wish the author had tied up the the Taylor and Jake questions.  Both of those characters have great potential but just miss.

I actually feel like I missed a great story and settled for just a good story.  The premise is so good.  I can see it all playing out with a guy just like Clark - a fixer who feels guilt too deeply.  But it missed the mark.  It settled for just a good story.

If you have a few hours, it's a nice distraction but it left me feeling unsatisfied. 


1 comment:

  1. Sorry to hear that you didn't end up loving this one. It has some of the things that I really love in romances: best friend's brother and fake relationship, but if it didn't have depth like you say then that would have really bothered me too. Great honest review!