April & Oliver

I recently read a book called April & Oliver by Tess Callahan. It came recommended on a blog listing for 6 books every woman should read . . . well after reading this one, I don't think I'll be keeping that list. It was written well enough (with flashbacks thrown in at random times which was a little hard to follow) and the story was compelling but honestly, I didn't need to read it and probably shouldn't have.

The premise of it, in case you are interested, is about a boy and a girl who grew up together avoiding an obvious attraction. They grew apart and lived very different lives and then one day were reunited --but Oliver is engaged to be married and April is a disaster (dating abusers, drinks too much, doesn't take care of herself, etc). I don't want to give the rest away. But I will caution you that the childhood April had was hard and included things like verbal abuse and molestation and a lot of family issues. It's detailed. It troubled me. I kept reading it because I wanted to see how she ended up and trying to broaden my scope of what some people's lives might actually be like. But it was a bit too much.

The reviews on GoodReads are very mixed and I would probably have given it 2 stars. My advise? Read something else.

I recently read a book called April & Oliver by Tess Callahan. It came recommended on a blog listing for 6 books every woman should read . . . well after reading this one, I don't think I'll be keeping that list. It was written well enough (with flashbacks thrown in at random times which was a little hard to follow) and the story was compelling but honestly, I didn't need to read it and probably shouldn't have.

The premise of it, in case you are interested, is about a boy and a girl who grew up together avoiding an obvious attraction. They grew apart and lived very different lives and then one day were reunited --but Oliver is engaged to be married and April is a disaster (dating abusers, drinks too much, doesn't take care of herself, etc). I don't want to give the rest away. But I will caution you that the childhood April had was hard and included things like verbal abuse and molestation and a lot of family issues. It's detailed. It troubled me. I kept reading it because I wanted to see how she ended up and trying to broaden my scope of what some people's lives might actually be like. But it was a bit too much.

The reviews on GoodReads are very mixed and I would probably have given it 2 stars. My advise? Read something else.