Customer Reviews

A Billion Reasons Why

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Eight years ago Katie McKenna was publicly rejected and humiliated by her then boyfriend Luc DeForges. Now, all these years later Luc has unexpectedly come back into her life and coerced her to come back to New Orleans to sing in his brother's wedding. Katie clearly still has feelings for Luc which complicates things with her fiance Dexter.

I really wanted to like this book. I considered giving it 3 stars just because I like Kristin Billerbeck's previous books so much. Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't. My main problem with this book is the characters, I found that I didn't care for them. I was not invested in them in the least bit. First, we have Katie who is a special needs teacher with an obsession with all things from the 1940's. I found this love of the 40's a tad overdone, and I am a huge fan of Cary Grant and movies from this era. There was a great mystery surrounding what had happened to Katie all those years ago to make her stay in California. When the reader is finally told I was a little more annoyed with Katie, after all these years it seemed to me she should have realized that perhaps the way she proposed to Luc was a bit inappropriate and out of the blue and that she should have given him a chance to explain. The time and place was Luc's college graduation party surrounded by guests, most of whom looked on Katie as a charity case. If I had known a bit more about Katie and Luc's relationship maybe it wouldn't have seemed so, well, ridiculous. Second, we have multimillionaire Luc who comes off as a pretty cocky man who thinks he knows what Katie really wants and needs. The author never really gave a clear picture of Luc, in my opinion, not enough for me to root for him. But by far my least favorite character was Eileen, Katie's best friend. Eileen was very pushy and critical of Katie, making her question her feelings and decisions at every turn. The only two characters I liked were Katie's mother and stepfather, they seemed to genuinely care for Katie and wanted to see her happy. Two nitpicky annoyances, the oft repeated use of the phrase "a billion reasons why." I expect to hear the title over and over in a song but found it a bit strange in a book. It seemed to me that the characters knew that they were in a book and were reminding us constantly of the title. Also, the cover of this book did not at all reflect the characters. Why choose a dark haired girl for Katie when she is referred to quite a number of times as having strawberry blonde hair?

While I cannot recommend this book I do recommend Ms. Billerbeck's previous work.

Eight years ago, Katie McKenna fled New Orleans with her broken heart. Believing she has finally repaired that heart she has found fulfillment in her chosen career of teaching special needs kids and Dexter, her soon to be fiancé. Or so she thought. Luc DeForges enters Katie's life once again looking for her to return to New Orleans as his date to his brother's wedding. He wants her to sing and dance at the 40's themed wedding and show the town that she is past her public humiliation eight years previous.

The synopsis of this book made it sound so romantic and charming. However, I found myself getting lost in several passages. Things didn't seem to flow right the actions seemed choppy and didn't make a lot of sense and I couldn't seem to get a true grasp on any of the characters. For instance, one character acts as though they saw a shared kiss/moment but they weren't even present. Luc acts as though his mother would be proud to know Katie yet his mother was the one screaming at Katie all those years ago. Katie's mother tells her that Mrs. DeForges is not nice but you don't really get that feeling from Luc, yet you do later and you get it from Katie's mother as well as from Katie.

I didn't know which characters to trust and I'm not sure they did either. They seemed to flip flop and change with the wind. I'm still trying to figure out how the stranger at the store could make that random comment about Katie's father when she barely spoke to Katie let alone knew anything about Katie's father.

Some of my biggest obstacles were:

That Luc didn't really seem to know Katie so how could he claim to have loved her all those years? She seemed to enjoy teaching and that was what she had planned to do all those years ago. The singing and dancing was just to help pay her way through school, yet Luc acts as though her choices gave her a "colorless existence."

I understood that Luc had his reasons for not acquiescing eight years earlier, but he couldn't have attempted to explain anything in all that time?

Why did he stay away for so long and what exactly was he up to? He couldn't have been building his wealth for her because she is not materialistic but his mother is!

I gathered that he sent Katie cards for Christmas to keep her up-to-date about his life, yet she said she hadn't heard from him in three years.

If Katie truly loved Luc then wouldn't she trust him? Yet even she believed the press and tabloids about his playboy ways. He thought she wouldn't believe them even though a few minutes before her comments indicated that she did and she believed them from their initial meeting at the beginning of the story. Later she says, "Eight years and two hundred blondes or so just slipped by." To which he tells her to look him in the eyes and tell him what she believes to be true about him. Of course she does, but her thoughts don't answer him. So I didn't see the point of that.

When conversations were started and I truly felt like explanations would be made, someone would inevitably interrupt and nothing was ever explained. It got to be very frustrating. However, I tend to believe that her mother had it right when she said a couple of times during the course of the story, "There's men who are charming and then there's men you marry. Luc ain't the marrying kind." Her mother claimed that Luc is about himself. It sounds like he is about himself when Katie asks him, "If you wanted to marry me, you had eight years to make it happen. Why would you wait until I was engaged to another man? You just wanted to win!" Of course he wonders what he has won and believes he has lost her instead. The man had eight years to correct a wrong and I'm still not sure why it took him that long. I didn't see how his pride was ever affected just hers.


*******POSSIBLE SPOILERS****** The icing on this proverbial cake takes place towards the end. Katie runs away and Luc calls for her, but she doesn't respond to him and ends up running into a post. She is out cold! Do you think Luc sticks around to see if she is okay? Nope, instead he "had an emergency." Seriously? He claims to love her so much, she runs into a post and is out cold and he has an emergency? When she comes to her friend claims that she is getting married to Luc. I swear I must have missed her accepting the proposal! I went back and reread that portion several times and I did NOT see her accepting the proposal.

I wish that I could recommend this book because it started out with such promise, but I felt like I was involved in some sort of puzzle that had no real, satisfactory solution, at least not for me.

When i first saw the front cover of the book..i brought it thinking it would be a good read.. For the life of me I could not get into the book...mainly because soo many other books are out there that i have read with the same plot.. rich guys..goes for poorer girls.. have a fight and get married..

I couldn't understand the characters.. they seems to bore me... the setting was just as bad.. and the whole swing 40's era thing just didn't seem to fit soo well.

Hopefully Kristins next book will be far more better and interesting then this one.

I haven't been able to find a lot of good romances lately. I'm not into the whole bodice ripper type deal nor am I a fan of guy meets girl, they fall in love blah blah blah. I like romances that are realistic where the characters act normal and fall in love like how we do in real life. Unfortunately I haven't had good luck finding those types of books. Most of them seem to be very good at romanticizing romance. While I did overall enjoy this story, this book seemed to be another one of those that do just that.

Luc's character took me a while to grown on. When we first meet him in the story, he seems VERY cocky. I really hated how he kept telling Katie what she had to do and wouldn't give her any other options. I was absolutely floored about how he threw her over her shoulder and then when she protested about the pictures being taken he acted like he was nothing. I do not know why women seem to think that being thrown over a guy's shoulder like a sack of potatoes is romantic. Even if Katie was the ONE for him, how he tries to get her back did not win any points with me. If someone is engaged (or nearly engaged) you don't go around trying to win them back with gifts, stolen kisses and insults about their fiance. Also not a fan of his mother because she blamed Katie solely for ruining her son's reputation. Hello! There were TWO people who were involved in that situation yet she doesn't blame her son at all. However as the story progressed, I did learn to like his character. I know he really did care a lot for Katie.

Eileen did not really seem like a good friend to me. In the beginning she keeps badmouthing Luc while rooting for Dexter. Then about halfway through the book, she changes her mind and does the opposite, but with no real reasons why. Dexter's character seemed very cardboard. I never got the feeling that he really loved Katie. I can understand why she wanted to be with him because of stability. I just wish that his character had been more developed. He kept saying how he kept talking to the pastor but there's not really much indication of his actual faith. I just felt like his one dimensional character forces us to want to like Luc instead. Dexter wasn't the bad guy but he just wasn't the right guy for Katie.

I'm not a fan of the cover. One, I don't like floating heads. Two, I wish that whoever had chosen the final cover had read the actual book. It's mentioned several times throughout the story that Katie has reddish-blond hair and green eyes. If it was just a one or two time thing then I could dismiss it. But because it's talked about A LOT, it's so disheartening to see a girl on the cover who has blackish/brown hair. This is one of those reasons why I don't like seeing faces on the cover. One other thing that really bothered me in the book was a scene where Luc's brother wraps his hands around Katie's waist and his fingers touch. While I know that there are women who do have incredibly small waists, the rest of us don't. Since this is never brought up again in the rest of the book, I'm not quite sure why it was included in the first place. If anything, it made me feel like a heifer after reading that scene.

Maybe I'm just a bit jaded about romances in general. I mean, I do love Billerbeck's books and I did enjoy the overall story. It's engaging and I really love using New Orleans as the setting. I guess for me it just seems too fairy tale-ish. I'm already married, got my guy, and just want to enjoy what we have. If I wasn't married or even dating, this book might make me yearn for a guy like Luc who is a bit unrealistic. If I was already married and not happy in the relationship, this book might make me want a guy like Luc and therefore make me not want my husband. I guess I'm not a romance fan like I thought I was. While this may not have been my favorite novel from Billerbeck, I do think romance fans will enjoy the book. You need love to make a relationship work and this book shows how important having that love is.

A Billion Reasons Why by Kristin Billerbeck is an easy read. Christian romances often leave alot to be desired as far as plot and character development go. This book is not an exception. Shallow characters and a thin plot line make this book a very quick read. However, I did not hate, nor did I consider it a waste of my time. I believe most fiction books are read purely for enjoyment and not every book needs to be a literary marvel.



The New Orleans settings and a bit of family historical mystery add a little Cajun spice to the love story. While I could never give this book 5 stars, the love triangle of Katie, Dexter and Luc warrants more like three stars. This is a book that will whisk you away to another place and time. It will have you strolling through New Orleans and also hanging with the high society. I highly recommend it as a leisurely afternoon read or even better, a beach book. There are no heaving bosoms, just a nice, easily read love story. I think you will enjoy it...about 3 stars worth.

This was a cute story, but I confess I would have liked to see a little more tension between the two main characters. They've been apart for 8 years because of the fact that he declined her marriage proposal in front of an entire room full of people, which should have made for great sparks of tension when he walks back into her life, yet I just didn't feel it. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I'm not a big fan of old classic movies and many of the "romantic" lines in the book were quotes from them (based on the fact that both the hero and the heroine are huge fans of the old movies.)

The book is well written and the dialog is snappy and fun. And if you like classic movies, then you will probably love this book.

My rating of 4 stars is an attempt to balance the quality of the writing and mechanics of the book with my enjoyment of the story itself. 5 Stars for being well written and having a fairly good plot and 3 stars because I just couldn't seem to connect with the characters and that dimmed my enjoyment of this romance.

Let me start by saying I wasn't aware this was Christian Fiction when I began reading it. (When I receive a book from a friend, I don't usually read the back cover. I'm probably an oddball that way.) I probably wouldn't have chosen it as a review-worthy book had I known that - mostly because I don't want to alienate any of my readers. Now, with that said? I loved this book!

This was the first time I've had the pleasure of reading Kristin Billerbeck, and I will definitely be grabbing a few more of her books because I just adored this. I started reading it last night about 6pm, and couldn't put it down! (Lucky for me, my three year old wanted to play in the bathtub for nearly an hour before bed so I could keep reading!) I woke up this morning with about 60 pages left to read in the 299 page novel.


The book starts (after a quick prologue) with Katie McKenna, a Special Education teacher in San Fransisco who is pre-engaged to Dexter who represents a safe and stable life. Yet one that grabs me as extremely boring!

Her ex boyfriend Luc, who happens to be successful, handsome and rich, shows up and begs Katie to return to her native New Orleans with him for his brothers wedding. After refusing, he resorts to bribing her with the ability to get her engagement ring - a family heirloom, and an expensive replica of a Ginger Rogers dress.

In an early scene with Dexter and Luc, it becomes apparent that Katie is marrying Dexter because he is safe (and in my opinion all the wrong reasons!) but she shies away from Luc because of a trauamtic past with him. Unfortunately, we don't get to learn that reason for quite some time.

A trip to Nola sends the reader deep into a colorful world where you fall in love with both Luc and Katie, as well as delve deeper into their background.


Things I Loved:
*The fact that Katie romanticized the 1940's so greatly. (It has been my favorite era since childhood when my Grandma would talk about WWII, my Grandfather and the early years of her marriage.)
*Luc. He was my ideal Hero! His quirky fedora, his obvious chemistry with Katie.
*The backdrop of New Orleans. I have traveled to all 48 of the continental states, and the NOLA region is one of my favorite, the people and the culture have sucked me in! (Not to mention their unique cuisine, of which this book left me craving Crawfish Etouffee!

Things I didn't Like:
*How much Katie let her friend, Eileen, run her life. She really made Katie seem a bit weak and childlike.
*Having to wait until halfway through the book to know exactly what Luc had done to embarrass Katie so much in the past.



All in all, I found this book to be a page turner. I loved the DeForges boys, I loved Katie - when she let her true colors show through! It left me with a craving for creole food, a desire to go swing dancing and a trip to New Orleans!

Luc broke Katie's heart and publicly humiliated her when he refused her marriage proposal. Eight years later, Katie is almost engaged to Dexter when Luc flies back into her life. Now she must decide if she wants the sensible, practical, safe man or the man who makes her heart race. I think you can guess what the answer is.

I wanted to like "A Billion Reasons Why." Amazon has been recommending it to me for weeks now, and I thought the synopsis made it sound interesting. Now, I wish I hadn't spent my time on it.

My main complaint with the book is the characters. I didn't find any of them particularly likeable, and Katie had zero chemistry with either Luc or Dexter. (I know it's odd to describe book characters as having chemistry, but if you've read anything by Denise Hunter or Karen Kingsbury, you'll know what I mean.) At one point, Katie's mother says she thinks Luc's brother Jem has always been half in love with Katie, and I thought, "That's it! I don't care about Luc or Dex because Katie belongs with Jem!" Wrong. Jem hardly factors into the plot. And then there's Eileen, Katie's best friend. Eileen (understandably) hates Luc because of what he did to Katie. But the girl seriously can't make up her mind! She tells Katie to marry Dex; she tells Katie not to marry Dex; she tells Katie to marry Dex; she tells Katie to marry Luc. Why would anyone listen to her? I kept waiting for Katie to tell her to shut up. I'm still waiting.

The book also has some continuity problems. For example, at the end of one chapter, Katie says she doesn't have any tears to cry over Dex. At the beginning of the next, Katie is a mess because of all her crying. At the end of the same chapter, Katie muses about her lack of an emotional response to what happened with Dex.

Lest you think I hated the book, you should know that I did enjoy two things: each chapter's title is a song title, and Billerbeck throws in several pop culture references that I enjoyed. I especially appreciated the reference to Robby, the poor "Bachelorette" contestant who was dumped in the middle of a train trip across Canada. See, I didn't hate everything!

A better title for this book would be "A Billion Reasons Why Not." Don't waste your money on this book. If you're dying to read it, request it from your local library.

Kristin Billerbeck has been credited for introducing chick-lit to the Christian book market. When chick-lit was no longer considered a hot commodity in adult fiction, Billerbeck went on to pen a couple of novels for the YA market (where the chick-lit style is still in demand). She now returns to adult fiction with A BILLION REASONS WHY, a light-hearted romance. This is not exactly the chick-lit her readers have become accustomed to, but I have to start by saying there are a billion reasons why you should pick up this book.

Eight years ago, Katie McKenna was publically rejected by her one true love, multi-millionaire Luc DeForges. She moved away from her hometown of New Orleans, giving up her career as a singer and dancer to become a special needs teacher in California. She has rebuilt her life and is even anticipating an engagement to Dexter, a sensible choice for a husband. He is safe, stable, and has all the qualities she's been looking for.

Luc shows up and asks Katie to come back home to sing at his brother Ryan's (also Katie's former dance partner) wedding. Katie is torn. Besides still harboring a grudge about being humiliated eight years ago, Katie doesn't quite trust herself with the charming and irresistible Luc. With Dexter's blessing, she eventually agrees to go, convincing herself she is only going back as a favor to Ryan and to retrieve her grandmother's wedding ring so Dexter can finally propose. She is also determined to find closure in her and Luc's relationship once and for all.

This story is basically one long game of tug-of-war between Katie's heart and mind. In her head, she knows Dexter would be the practical choice. But her heart is drawn to Luc, who knows her inside and out and loves her for who she is. Luc seems sincere as he professes his adoration, but self-preservation, not to mention her stubborn pride, prevents Katie from letting down her guard and trusting that Luc won't shatter her heart yet again.

Romantic tension abounds as Luc pursues and Katie pulls back. It is never really a mystery as to which man Katie will choose in the end. As she continues to fight her feelings, there may be times when you want to reach through the pages and slap some sense into Katie yourself. But even though the story's ending is predictable, the charming characters and snappy dialogue that Billerbeck is known for makes A BILLION REASONS WHY a fun and satisfying read.

Two aspects make this story especially stand out from the typical romance. The backdrop of New Orleans, rich in culture and energy, is bursting with vivid descriptions and landmark references, bringing the reader along for the ride. Then there's the '40s theme. Katie is passionate about the age of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, something Luc "gets" about her, but Dexter can't relate at all. Even if you're not that interested in old movies or 1940s-style dance and fashion, after reading this book, you may learn a thing or two and find yourself more than a little intrigued.

A couple of memorable characters include Katie's Mam, a straightforward woman with plenty of southern hospitality, good for several laugh-out-loud lines. Opinionated Eileen, Katie's best friend and yoga instructor, is a hoot. She's skeptical and outspoken about both Luc and Dexter, but it's clear that she only loves her friend and wants what's best for her. It is during a scene near the end of the book that Mam and Eileen team up to make Katie consider whether true love is ever really "safe." This brings everything back to that game of tug-of-war Katie has going on. Is playing it safe really God's will for her life, or does He want her to follow the pull of her heart?

Overall, A BILLION REASONS WHY is a fun, light, clean romance that will leave you with a smile on your face, a sigh on your lips, and a dance in your step.

--- Reviewed by Lynda Schab

Kristin Billerbeck is a master at writing chick-lit! This is a charming book that, while lighthearted and fun to read, still manages to pack a powerful lesson about faith and love. I'm thinking there are at least A Billion Reasons Why you should take this book with you for a spring break get-away read!