Who Do You Love
Ratings12
Average rating3.6
Rachel Blum - high brow Philly/Miami; heart defect
Andy Landis - poor, runner, Olympian, lost
Liked it but it didn't blow me away. Rachel is a really well written character but I didn't feel like I had as much insight into Andy - kind of wish he'd been in first-person as well. Some of the minor characters felt a little cartoonish (like Maisie) but I thought they were overall effective. Solid but nothing spectacular.
It's been awhile since I've read a romance, but after a week like I had (it was the first week of school...need I say more?) a gentle romance was about the only reading my tired brain could handle. I read it in three hours, gobbled it, really, and it was the absolute perfect book for me after that long, long, long first week of school. Like a soda after a detox or summer break after the first year of college or the new fall lineup after summer reruns. A lovely little romance.
I read an interview with the author and she disclosed that after she and her first husband were divorced, she looked up a former boyfriend, contacted him and eventually married him. So she obviously feels strongly about reconnecting with old lovers or first loves. I can't help thinking that if she had chosen to write about her own experiences they would have been more engaging than this story. I never really felt that Andy and Rachel had the magical bond that Weiner kept telling me about, and the problems that kept them apart didn't seem resolved at the end so I didn't feel particularly hopeful that they would stay together. Individually, Andy's story was an interesting one while Rachel's was more stereotypical Jewish American princess (albeit one with a heart condition). Together they just didn't make sense. After several disappointing recent releases, I'm wondering if Weiner will ever reach the heights of her earlier novels such as Good in Bed and In Her Shoes again.