Learning to Love

3.00 for the book, 3.5 for the Audio

This is my third Felice Stevens read and I'm beginning to sense a pattern. The landscape is authentic and recognizable along with the usual cast of New York characters. In this case some nice Jewish boys from Brooklyn and their friends and family. I like to read about everyday people but this one was just on the ‘underwhelming' side.

Usually when I do audios I follow along with the print just to ‘see' the words or even highlight but in this instance I stuck strictly to my ears and the performance by Derrick McClain. I happen to like Derrick very much and once again he didn't disappoint. There's a clear distinction between characters and a nice but not over dramatized narration. He even does nice voices for the women in the story. I'm not sure he did any favors to the main MC, Gideon Marks. No fault on Derrick's part but rather on who Gideon is or how he is written.

Gideon Marks has come home to Brooklyn from a self imposed Florida exile. He wants to make a success of his catering business but he also wants to rub it in the face of those who thought he wouldn't amount to anything. He particularly wants to impress one Jonah Fine and Jonah is impressed. So what was my problem? Glad you asked. I had a few, though none of them were deal breakers, more like sand in your shoes. Not as bad as pebbles but annoying nonetheless.

The major stumble for me is Gideon himself and when you sort of dislike the main MC everything teeters. He had the standard issue fraught childhood, his mother and beloved grandmother were killed in an accident leaving him with an alcoholic father who was ill equipped to deal with Gideon's needs which went beyond the usual teenage growing pains. What said needs were/are the reader can figure out pretty soon before being told. It's very noble of the author to have a character with these issues and having him deal with them, but Gideon is a bit of an insufferable ass and with something like a boulder on his shoulder. For one thing all those nay sayers he's come home to stare down are mostly in his head and while this attitude is perfectly believable and understandable in a troubled teenager it gets harder to swallow from an almost 30 successful businessman. It annoys me to no end to have people jump to conclusions about the intentions or motivations of others when their main complaint is being unfairly judged. Also when people do nothing but snap at others when they're being shown nothing but kindness I want to reach in the book and slap them. I wanted to grab Gideon by his curly locks and drag him around a bit and hug him later.

Another hurdle is that though Jonah and Gideon knew each other since they were teenagers I don't see how they would get hung up on each other. As far as I could tell they only saw each other at temple; they went to different schools and weren't even friends. So how smitten could they have been to the point where Jonah seems to have been waiting for Gideon for ten years when they never had anything going?

In any case after some back and forth of Jonah being unbelievably patient with Gideon and letting him figure out that he is and always was into Gideon our love birds are living in bliss when we have the ‘out of nowhere' righteous indignation from Gideon, subsequent stomping out, and some groveling from Jonah and forgiveness from Gideon. Thing is in my book Jonah had nothing to apologize for. Another instance of Gideon being a prickly diva. More stuff happens, Gideon confronts and makes some sort of peace with his past and Jonah solves his non-problems. Good people doing good things. Amen.

The theme here seems to be that your enjoyment of this book will depend on how much you like or hate Gideon. I don't hate him but I can see us having words.

1.5 Stars

Honestly, this book was a bit of a hot mess. This couple had ZERO chemistry. Aria started out as a likable heroine but then turned into some weird alcoholic. Plus, I didn't understand why she was marrying her ex when all she did was talk badly about him. How he mistreated her. How he has a small dick. She didn't seem to like the guy even BEFORE she found out he was cheating, so why exactly did she stay with him for SIX years? Roman was OK, but his character came off formal and stiff. Plus, without a POV from him, he felt very one dimensional, and he came across as an overbearing stalking psychopath.





On top of that, this book was all over the place storywise. Like Aria has an issue with Roman being wealthy, but her ex fiancee played for the Chicago Cubs and was wealthy. Inconsistencies like she says she barely ever had sex with David but then says “he was probably tired from having sex with two women on the regular”. She makes plans to meet a good friend for dinner, but no one wonders what happened to her when she doesn't show up? There were also times when they have the same conversation twice. Like Roman telling Aria his father is dead and a few chapters later they have the same conversation (his father being dead). Or the fact that all of a sudden she doesn't like flying, but she flew with no issues at the beginning of the book. Another thing, there are only seven seasons of Game Of Thrones, not ten...sigh. These are things that should have been caught by a decent BETA reader at the very least. Last, we find out near the end that the heroine is a dead ringer to the hero's dead ex. A plot point I hate with a passion. So yea, this book didn't work for me on any level.