Loved it. So I saw the whole Alex still being alive coming from nine hundred miles away. I then decided I didn't want her to be with Julian because then it would kind of make her feelings for Alex feel kind of fake or fickle. If you are giving up your entire way of life for someone, you better love them until you die. But then I grew to really like Julian. Now I don't know who I want her to be with. Yes, of all the other important things addressed in the book, this is the thing that I am going to just think about until the next book comes out!
I was better with the ending once I realized there was a sequel. Prior to that, I would have given it three stars. It was a nice easy read ad you liked the characters. Although, I will say I shed a lot of tears reading this. Most definitively a tear jerker.
I liked it. The beginning was slow, but it eventually picked up. I liked that even though there are more books, I didn't feel like my world wouldn't be complete if I didn't read them. Basically it could be a good stand alone book. However, I will probably read the rest of the books.
I liked the characters and can totally relate to Valerie being that I was kind of that person in high school. The only thing that I didn't like about this book was the open ending. It seemed to me like she was running away. I read the stuff written by the author about how, no, she wasn't actually running away and what not. But it seemed that way to me and I guess I didn't like that. I really hate books with open endings to. I like for everything to be wrapped up in a neat little package.
This whole review contains spoilers. So here's my thing. I enjoyed the book even though the premise was a tiny bit weird. The thing that I hated about this book (which was enough to drop it from a 5 star to a 4 star, and really if 3.5 stars was an option I'd put it there) was that the heroine seemed kind of dense. It took her entire too long to figure out she was a princess. And then she just bought the whole, he love me not because I am a princess, but because I'm me stuff. He never really gave any indictation prior to him figuring that she was probably the princess that he liked her. So you really don't know that that love isn't based on her being a princess. I'm just saying.
This book was a little young for me, but I did end liking the book.However, I am the type of girl who NEEDS an epilogue. Call me silly, but I just felt like we had been seeing their future and then when you most want to know what happens next. Nada. That kind of left me a little sad. Not going to lie. I wanted to know if they get married and have kids and live happily ever after. Plus what about Lindsey? Who's her dad? Does she still come to be? These are all the things I really wanted to know. I hate making up my own endings. : )
So here's the thing. I think that this book series ended the only way it could, but I also think they could have ended it five minutes in to book one the same way and I wouldn't have ended up wondering what the point was. I still liked the series and have told a few friends to read it, but I was still puzzled by the ending.
Well, first off I should say that I am typically a Kristin Hannah fan. Everyone of her books I've read to date, I actually liked / loved, so I was disappointed to say that I barely liked this one. As a matter of fact, I toyed with the idea of a one star, but in the end decided on two. I won't read this again, not that I ever do, but I also won't be loaning it to any of the ladies that I know who like to read. I think it was really that I just didn't like the characters or that they weren't as dveloped as I would have liked. Typically her books are twice as thick and maybe that was the problem, there wasn't enough time to fall in love with any of them. There were lots of things that I thought could have been expounded upon, but in the end I was just glad when it was over. This is the synopsis from publisher's weekly, quite possibly if I would have read that last line I would have realized this book wasn't going to be for me.
Hannah returns with another second-chance-at-love story, this one as bleak as the soggy Pacific Northwest setting. Perimenopausal former artist Elizabeth Shore is feeling lost and miserable these days, as daughters Jamie and Stephanie matriculate at Georgetown and husband Jack focuses on jump-starting his stalled sports broadcasting career. So Elizabeth, tellingly nicknamed "Birdie," compulsively redecorates her empty nest and pesters Jack with lugubrious questions about what's wrong with their lives. Then Jack scores a journalistic coup, and in his implausibly meteoric return to broadcasting glory, winds up in an efficiency apartment in New York City, halfheartedly fending off the advances of both a nubile assistant and a Hollywood bombshell. Meanwhile, back in rainy Oregon, Birdie grieves for her beloved late father, joins a support group for "passionless" women, starts to paint again and talks to herself in the self-help homilies Hannah favors ("No more cheerleader years for me. I need to get in the game"). She even has a rapprochement with newly widowed stepmother Anita, who, in a particularly explosive burst of character development, somehow transforms from a tacky Southern "Bette Midler on speed" to a white-haired sylph favoring "long, flowing" white dresses. (When Birdie finds her bliss, she discovers she's miraculously lost weight.) Hannah's tried-and-true formula includes the predictable happy ending, complete with life lessons tearfully learned, but only hardcore fans will make it to the last page of this dreary soap.
I stayed up way too late last night finishing this book and have to mimic what some of the other reviewers of this book have said.... I may have wanted to throw the book across the room, but I didn't. Last night I would have probably given this book two stars, I was that annoyed. But then I slept on it and realized it was an open ended ending, which I typically don't like (I need it wrapped in a little bow for me, that;s how I roll), but decided this morning it was actually the best way it could have ended given the circumstances of the book. (I may have also read somewhere this morning that there will be two more books in the series, if that's true, I move it to five stars, if that's not true.... then I'll be sad). This book is very reminiscent of the Time Traveler's Wife, which to this day still ranks as one of my favorite books of all time. It had a lot of similar elements...a love that never kept popping up at inopportune times (he's four, she's 70). And you are left wondering if the life they are living now is the one where it will finally work out for them. (For those who know nothing about the book, souls keep getting reborn in new bodies, most people forget their old lives, but there are a few people who have the "memory" to remember all of their past lives. Daniel remembers and spends nearly every life trying to find Sophia).
This book is well written and very well thought out and there ends up being only one character that I despised. My only issue was keeping up with who all the people were in their old lives and in their new lives. Daniel always lets you know if you've met that person before, but frankly I could only keep the main four characters straight and ended up letting the others just fade away in my mind.
I love most of Erica Spindler's books, she's an author I found ages ago and always try to make sure I've read whatever her current book is. I'm giving this one four stars although I am not 100% sure it's because I loved the book or because I love her an an author, if 3.5 stars were an option that's where this one would more than likely land. There were times when I felt like this book went too fast and there were times when I felt like it went too slow. In the end, I liked the story and the plot, however I figured the majority of it out half way through. There was never a gotcha moment that I kind of like. Although in all honesty that could be because I have read everyone of her books and know somewhat how her mind works. I'd recommend this to people who love a good mystery, but with a notation that there are some weird undertones that some people may find offensive.
I loved this book. Whenever I am feeling blue, I always tell myself that I am dauntless. Even though I know I am not. I can't wait for the next book.
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