Good evening fellow readers :)
I hope everyone's having a great start to their week, and to the Christmas season. I've been enjoying starting my baking, and getting some gifts wrapped today, but I thought I would take a quick break from doing so to review a book I was highly anticipating reading, Love Water Memory Jennie Shortridge
I received this book for Christmas last year from my hubby, and it one of the books I was most excited about reading. I had seen it at Shoppers Drug Mart one day while we were doing some Christmas shopping, and the synopsis really intrigued me. Here is the back blurb from goodreads: "If you could do it all over again, would you still choose him?
At age thirty-nine, Lucie Walker has no choice but to start her life over when she comes to, up to her knees in the chilly San Francisco Bay, with no idea how she got there or who she is. Her memory loss is caused by an emotional trauma she knows nothing about, and only when handsome, quiet Grady Goodall arrives at the hospital does she learn she has a home, a career, and a wedding just two months away. What went wrong? Grady seems to care for her, but Lucie is no more sure of him than she is of anything. As she collects the clues of her past self, she unlocks the mystery of what happened to her. The painful secrets she uncovers could hold the key to her future—if she trusts her heart enough to guide her."
First and foremost, I need to say that I went in to reading this book with many misconceived perceptions. I was under the impression that this book was going to be more of a mystery/suspense/thriller type of book, kind of an adult version of Six Months Later by Natalie D. Richards, which is one of my all time favorite books. And it was not like this at all. It ended up being more of a "journey to self discovery" type of novel, which while may not have been what I was anticipating, I tried not to let it cloud my overall judgement of the book.
Love Water Memory is told in the viewpoints of three different characters: Lucie, the main character who has experienced a trauma that she can't recall, and as such, has no recollection of her life before coming to in the San Francisco Bay; Grady, Lucie's fiancé who she no longer remembers; and Helen, who has a connection to Lucie's childhood. I personally really enjoyed Lucie's viewpoint throughout the novel. It was quite interesting to hear her thoughts on trying to put her life back together, and her realization that the former version of herself was not a person she wished to see return. However, I did not care for Helen and Grady's viewpoints at all, and found myself hoping their chapters would be short so that Lucie's viewpoint could return.
It becomes clear to both the reader, and to Lucie herself, that she was a closed off, hard to get to know type of person, who insisted on perfection in every aspect of her life. Her diet, wardrobe, acquaintances, date nights; everything had to be the best of the best, and she is unable to identify with this life anymore. Perhaps one of the things I disliked most about this book was Grady's reaction to her feeling this way. From his viewpoint, it was easy to see that Lucie hadn't been the easiest person to get along with, and that their relationship was far from perfect, and yet he seemed mainly just to whine about her not being the same, and complaining that he wanted his old Lucie back. It really seemed that his character didn't have a lot of sympathy or understanding for what his fiancé was going through, and I found myself really disliking his character overall. Throughout the novel he makes many selfish decisions, and while it is mentioned in flashbacks that Lucie had done many similar things before her accident, it just felt like Lucie was trying to get to know him in the here and now, and he was stuck in the past refusing to acknowledge that she could have possibly wanted to change.
My other main complaint with the book was Helen's character. In a way I didn't even see the purpose of her character's story needing to be told, as it mainly seemed once again to be her just complaining about the way her life had turned out, and the fact that Lucie was no longer in her life. I spent most of the novel waiting for the "big reveal" that would explain what had caused Lucie's incident to occur, and what had happened in her childhood to cause the sever of her former relationship with Helen. When the reveal finally happened, I have to say I was left hugely disappointed, and I didn't think it was an adequate climax to all the issues that had been hinted at throughout the book. I also felt: SLIGHT SPOILER: that it showed the negligence of Helen and her husband as guardians that Lucie was dealing with the issues so late in life in the first place, and I think a lot of it could have been avoided if they had gotten her the help she needed after the childhood issues occurred.
In conclusion, while I may have had quite a bit of negative things to say about this book, I did actually overall enjoy it. I enjoyed Lucie's character, and the way she was a take charge kind of a female protagonist, and reading about the way she began to put her life back together. I did not however, care for Grady and Helen at all throughout the novel, and I really didn't feel like there were any redeeming moments from either one of them to make me feel differently. My overall rating is 3/5 stars, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if there wasn't such a build up to a big mystery that really wasn't that big of mystery in the end, and also if the characters of Grady and Helen had had more redeeming qualities.
I do recommend giving this book a try if you enjoy those kind of novels that deal with a journey to self discovery and such, as I did really enjoy that part of the novel, and would still recommend giving it a try.
Favorite quote: "Tomorrow will be an adventure. You get to rediscover your home, your life, and a man who loves you."
Thanks for reading and I will be back soon with another book review :)
This is not a sponsored post. The book was not provided for review. The picture belongs to me :)
I hope everyone's having a great start to their week, and to the Christmas season. I've been enjoying starting my baking, and getting some gifts wrapped today, but I thought I would take a quick break from doing so to review a book I was highly anticipating reading, Love Water Memory Jennie Shortridge
I received this book for Christmas last year from my hubby, and it one of the books I was most excited about reading. I had seen it at Shoppers Drug Mart one day while we were doing some Christmas shopping, and the synopsis really intrigued me. Here is the back blurb from goodreads: "If you could do it all over again, would you still choose him?
At age thirty-nine, Lucie Walker has no choice but to start her life over when she comes to, up to her knees in the chilly San Francisco Bay, with no idea how she got there or who she is. Her memory loss is caused by an emotional trauma she knows nothing about, and only when handsome, quiet Grady Goodall arrives at the hospital does she learn she has a home, a career, and a wedding just two months away. What went wrong? Grady seems to care for her, but Lucie is no more sure of him than she is of anything. As she collects the clues of her past self, she unlocks the mystery of what happened to her. The painful secrets she uncovers could hold the key to her future—if she trusts her heart enough to guide her."
First and foremost, I need to say that I went in to reading this book with many misconceived perceptions. I was under the impression that this book was going to be more of a mystery/suspense/thriller type of book, kind of an adult version of Six Months Later by Natalie D. Richards, which is one of my all time favorite books. And it was not like this at all. It ended up being more of a "journey to self discovery" type of novel, which while may not have been what I was anticipating, I tried not to let it cloud my overall judgement of the book.
Love Water Memory is told in the viewpoints of three different characters: Lucie, the main character who has experienced a trauma that she can't recall, and as such, has no recollection of her life before coming to in the San Francisco Bay; Grady, Lucie's fiancé who she no longer remembers; and Helen, who has a connection to Lucie's childhood. I personally really enjoyed Lucie's viewpoint throughout the novel. It was quite interesting to hear her thoughts on trying to put her life back together, and her realization that the former version of herself was not a person she wished to see return. However, I did not care for Helen and Grady's viewpoints at all, and found myself hoping their chapters would be short so that Lucie's viewpoint could return.
It becomes clear to both the reader, and to Lucie herself, that she was a closed off, hard to get to know type of person, who insisted on perfection in every aspect of her life. Her diet, wardrobe, acquaintances, date nights; everything had to be the best of the best, and she is unable to identify with this life anymore. Perhaps one of the things I disliked most about this book was Grady's reaction to her feeling this way. From his viewpoint, it was easy to see that Lucie hadn't been the easiest person to get along with, and that their relationship was far from perfect, and yet he seemed mainly just to whine about her not being the same, and complaining that he wanted his old Lucie back. It really seemed that his character didn't have a lot of sympathy or understanding for what his fiancé was going through, and I found myself really disliking his character overall. Throughout the novel he makes many selfish decisions, and while it is mentioned in flashbacks that Lucie had done many similar things before her accident, it just felt like Lucie was trying to get to know him in the here and now, and he was stuck in the past refusing to acknowledge that she could have possibly wanted to change.
My other main complaint with the book was Helen's character. In a way I didn't even see the purpose of her character's story needing to be told, as it mainly seemed once again to be her just complaining about the way her life had turned out, and the fact that Lucie was no longer in her life. I spent most of the novel waiting for the "big reveal" that would explain what had caused Lucie's incident to occur, and what had happened in her childhood to cause the sever of her former relationship with Helen. When the reveal finally happened, I have to say I was left hugely disappointed, and I didn't think it was an adequate climax to all the issues that had been hinted at throughout the book. I also felt: SLIGHT SPOILER: that it showed the negligence of Helen and her husband as guardians that Lucie was dealing with the issues so late in life in the first place, and I think a lot of it could have been avoided if they had gotten her the help she needed after the childhood issues occurred.
In conclusion, while I may have had quite a bit of negative things to say about this book, I did actually overall enjoy it. I enjoyed Lucie's character, and the way she was a take charge kind of a female protagonist, and reading about the way she began to put her life back together. I did not however, care for Grady and Helen at all throughout the novel, and I really didn't feel like there were any redeeming moments from either one of them to make me feel differently. My overall rating is 3/5 stars, and I think I would have enjoyed it more if there wasn't such a build up to a big mystery that really wasn't that big of mystery in the end, and also if the characters of Grady and Helen had had more redeeming qualities.
I do recommend giving this book a try if you enjoy those kind of novels that deal with a journey to self discovery and such, as I did really enjoy that part of the novel, and would still recommend giving it a try.
Favorite quote: "Tomorrow will be an adventure. You get to rediscover your home, your life, and a man who loves you."
Thanks for reading and I will be back soon with another book review :)
This is not a sponsored post. The book was not provided for review. The picture belongs to me :)
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