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2.0 out of 5 starsA Lifetime Movie trying very hard to be Titanic
ByKirsioon October 6, 2014
Welp, I hate to do this, but I'm going to be the first person to disagree with the other reviewers and give this book a low rating. The synopsis had me at hello and I was SO looking forward to an edgy, romantic, mysterious and exciting adventure story on a sail boat. What I got was a very predictable and formulaic "romance" with a climax that was so heavily foreshadowed she may as well have told us on the back of the book exactly what was going to happen. Maybe my expectations were too high; I was hoping for a really expansive and well-developed cast of characters and plot, but this felt more like a Lifetime Movie with unknown actors and a low budget that airs in the middle of the afternoon.
I spent some time in Thailand as a teenager so I was really hoping she would get it right, because Thailand is amazing. The color, the smells, the culture, the feeling of the heavy humid air on your skin... I wanted to see all of those things in this book and initially I thought she was going to give it to me. The book started well, with Jessica arriving in Thailand to take a job teaching English in a small school. I found the set-up of her living in a guest house and building relationships with Thai children very interesting. But then the book veered off in a couple erratic directions (she took a second job at a bar, she met a mysterious older man who comes to donate to the school, she inexplicably decides she wants to join the crew of a sailboat even though she has no sailing experience and just posts a notice on the dock bulletin board and *surprise!* gets hired) To me this all felt like the author was trying way too hard. She was trying too hard to give Jessica an adventure and to make Grant seem benevolent and intriguing, but I didn't connect with any of it and therefore I didn't care. Thailand and the school began to feel like a prop that the actors used when convenient, but ultimately didn't add much to the story. I didn't believe the main characters had any chemistry and their relationship felt unnatural and forced for some reason, like he was doing her a favor.
I didn't enjoy reading about their romance, partly because the characters felt flat and partly because it was cheesy at times. For example:
"I could have stood there forever. It was like an Asian Casablanca. A hand on my shoulder awoke me from my daydream... I looked up into Humphrey Bogart's eyes."
That was when the record scratched for me and I had a very hard time taking the book seriously after that. Jessica came across as an immature girl with a crush on an older man, so I wound up feeling sorry for her rather than hoping their relationship would go anywhere. The climax itself, while predictable, wasn't terrible and for some people it might hit just the right note of suspense and adventure. For me personally, I was skimming so hard to get to the end by that point that it was just a blip on my radar. If you've read Dina Silver before (I hadn't) and you know you like her style, then don't let my review stop you from a quick afternoon read. But if are looking for something really epic and memorable with a multilayered plot, you may want to keep looking.