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book review blogs
@Barrie Summy
I'm jumping in a little early to post my review this month because the next few days are going to be crazy busy and I really wanted to participate.
That said, the book I'll be reviewing this month is Misery Loves Cabernet by Kim Gruenenfelder. It was referred to me by amazon. Based on purchases and recommendations I've made, they thought I would like this book.Gotta say, the title is what first caught my attention - I love it. But, I didn't want to purchase it just because it had a catchy title so I jumped down to the reviews. I don't typically read reviews that give away the story and this wasn't an exception but what I discovered was that an overwhelming majority of the reviewers loved the book. The only concern I had was that it appeared to be part of a series, and not the first one. If I know a book is part of a series, my preference is to read them in order. So, I checked into the first book. It didn't seem bad but it didn't intrigue me as much as Cabernet did. Kind of broke my own rule when I started with the second book.
Anyway, I really liked this book a lot. It's about a woman making it on her own. She's got quirky and interesting people in her life and ridiculously funny things happen to her. I've said before that the heroine may not know who the hero is but that I want it to be clear to the reader because if it's not clear to me, I don't enjoy the story as much.
Well, this book makes an exception to that theory because I had no idea who the hero was supposed to be but I didn't care. I was enjoying the journey Charlie (the heroine) was on and I was looking forward to seeing where it took her.
And I loved the characters in the book. In particular, I loved Drew - Charlie's boss. She's his assistant. He's like a little boy that doesn't know about "boundaries". Honestly, I was rooting for him to be the hero because they kind of complemented each other. She'd probably want to kill him in a year or two but the book doesn't take it that far so they would've been fine. ;)
Now, I've said I loved the book but there was something that bothered me from early on. Cabernet is what I'm going to call an independent book. I don't mean stand alone as in one of a series of books that continues the story but it stands on its own. I mean independent as in - in my opinion - the beginning and ending of the book don't allow for a satisfying story before or after the story in this book. To me, this book opened in the exact right place and had a satisfying ending. Thing is, what I know about the first book, it also had a satisfying ending. Had I read it first (and assuming it is as good as this one) I probably would've snatched this one up in a heartbeat, thinking it would be a continuation of the satisfying ending. Of course, that's making assumptions on my part but I just can't see myself reading the first book now without being annoyed by it. The same would go for a book that would follow this one. Sad too because I really did love this book.
So, bottom line is, I loved this book. Definitely will read other books by this author . . . just not necessarily ones that follow this same character's story. :)
