Sam's Reading: A Work in Progress

Well...yay!
This feels like it belongs on that shelf with Act Like It or The Hating Game (if anything belongs on that shelf with the Hating Game) in terms of contemporary debuts. There were so many many great things about this book.

The heroine and her relationships: I'm including her relationship to her job, her friends, her town, her brother (they had me tearing up-sibling relationships are so crazy deep and this was well done IMO). What was wonderful is this all gave us a great idea of who Kit is. And who she wanted to be. And girl, I'm all for comfort zones and an ambition of having a stable, content life. That said, it was truly wonderful how this STEM heroine was portrayed, for that piece wasn't at all glossed over and I even noticed subtle and wonderful things by the author--For example, there was no assumption by the hero that a doctor was male-and then the heroine describes her-things like this make me giddy. It is a sign of a wonderful feminist author. I lamented a few weeks ago about someone telling us how competent a STEM heroine was (again!) and how a book tried to have such a feminist feel that it actually weakened this point for me. This was not the case in Beginner's Luck. Our heroine is competent, and they continually show us.

So the secondary characters were all wonderful and I want to befriend every one of them. I cannot wait to read on for the next installment of (or maybe the one after that as I have high hopes for Greer)

And then there's the hero. And the hero's dad. And the hero's, well everything felt very purposeful here too. He had me when he told her upon first meeting "I like you." And that first kiss..whew...He's not perfect. He holds his hopes and wants close, but it is clear from the outset that he begins to care deeply about Kit. He humors and even adores her friends for being who they are to her, he LISTENS. I kept finding myself thinking how adored that makes people feel to have someone who pays such careful attention to them. And there's that heartbreaking fuck-up that was not really his doing, but certainly led to his undoing. The hospital scene killed me, both at the time and when they referred back to it. I don't usually cry from books, but this one burned. "I'll do anything." And the fact that that included leaving. sigh. And he certainly had me when he looked around his bare Houston apartment and realized he didn't want to be there anymore.

Then there's the final chapter in the salvage yard. "Don't expect his back." And then there's what follows....


Maybe I should've come down from this book a bit, it was such a delightful surprise (despite two reviewers I follow closely adoring it as well!). My review feels unfocused and gushy, but it just makes me so happy to read a great book with excellent secondary characters and a love story that feels totally fresh.