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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
2 stars
I wanted to like this book so bad. But it just feels dated in its theme and values. For example: not like the other girls… the career women is “empty” while the crazy light keeper who impregnates his young wife to baby trap her is to be pitied… and the 28yo love interest falls for a barely 18yo and tells her that her feelings of infatuation are love. Plus describing Orca are pure and unpolluted was nauseating.
I also couldn’t suspend disbelief that Orca goes from living in complete isolation to civilization with such ease and grace.
I wanted to like this book so bad. But it just feels dated in its theme and values. For example: not like the other girls… the career women is “empty” while the crazy light keeper who impregnates his young wife to baby trap her is to be pitied… and the 28yo love interest falls for a barely 18yo and tells her that her feelings of infatuation are love. Plus describing Orca are pure and unpolluted was nauseating.
I also couldn’t suspend disbelief that Orca goes from living in complete isolation to civilization with such ease and grace.
Loved the book. It is really good. A story settled in the late 90s with the plot of Rapunzel. It’s a masterpiece. Orca is my favorite character through the book. I love the love triangle trope that the book uses. When I am reading this, I feel myself being the character. The language is fairly impressive. I think this is a good book and I can recommend it. Four stars cause the MC is with the wrong character.
Thank you to NetGalley and the author, Abbie Emmons, for providing an ARC copy of The Otherworld in exchange for an honest reveiw. I was not compensated for this, my thoughts are my own.
This book! From page one, the story oozes off the page, full of heart and emotion. It's cozy. A feel good read that plucks your heart strings apart and pieces them back together again. It is more than a romance read—though don't get me wrong, the love triangle is well done and bitterswseet. Emmon's does a good job keeping that trope fresh. The characters are well developed, the pace is good. I struggled to find stopping points. Thats a plus.
My only complaint...and its minor, mind you, comes with the setting. Even though the book takes place in the 90's its still not enough of a time lapse to create the overly isolated island in the sound that Orca lives on. In the early pages, where she speaks of having only her father in her life...that the only other people she has ever met in her lifetime come to deliver supplies infrequently...isnt realistic. She mentions looking through her Papa's spybglass and only seeing endless ocean. The islands in the sound are close together. At the very least, she would be able to make out Mt. Constitution from anywhere in the sound, from any other island in that area. The ocean itself would be teaming with boats. People easily move from island to island to visit them. 100 years ago, that isolation would work...but then...it would be a totally different story. Having intimate knowledge of the area made it challenging for me to suspend disbelief and fall into the setting 100%. I found myself wishing that she did not specifically name any of the islands...that she left them all unknamed, and created them fresh and new and made up. When actual, specific places are name dropped...I expect to explore that reality, that realness, from the comfort of my recliner and not actually traveling to said location. I want to experience a vacation in my mind. Every time she mentioned never meeting another man in her life...never seeing boats or planes. Being so very excluded from the world...I sighed. That said, Emmons writing style is evocotave. Lyrical. Lovely. The islands depiction is beautiuful. In the end, most readers are not going to have a clue that the setting doesn't mesh fully with the story in a truthful, realistic manner. Only those with intimate knowledge of the Pacific Northwest will truly know. It's okay. The rest of the book made up for it. The parts where the characters explore Whidbey Island and Seattle and surrounding areas of the Mainland were fine.
I greatly enjoyed the family dynamics. The personalities of the brothers are well fleshed out. The romance elements are good, but the relationship between the brothers is GREAT. When Jack thinks Adam is dead...and is curled on the floor...oh my heart. Emmons gutted me. Tears may have welled. ;) I truly loved the family drama the most. Its what drove the romance, the story. Be it the conflict and tention between Orca and her father, the brothers, Orcas other family discoveries...those were the deep, delicious nuggets I loved unearthing. Toss in whales and philisophical conversations about life, love, the universe...the butterfly effect...and I was hooked.
Now, the romance. I don't normally care much for love triangles, but both love intererests were so likeable, it was difficult not to be sucked in. I love how both brothers see different sides to Orca. How both are exactly what she needs...both bring out elements inside her that she didn't know existed. It made it hard to choose who to root for, there was not just one clear cut choice as there often can be in those pesky love triangles. One brothers strength was the other brothers weakness and vice versa. Quite interesting.
The only parts that made me cringe were at the end. I am fine with the age gap. I am fine with her chosing Adam. The whirlwind "lets get married although we only met two weeks ago and you have NEVER HAD A BOYFRIEND BEFORE" just made my old fart brain sigh. Younger me would have devoured this with no issue, licked the bowl clean, and asked for more. It did remind me, however, of young, first love. My own age gap romance when I was a teenager (younger than Orca), and how that did feel like the end all, be all, in a short period of time even though I had little experience prior to said older boyfriend. So it works, it just didnt end as satisfying for the me of today. However, most will love it and eat this up so please, don't let the words of an old, jaded gal disuade you from reading. This story has all the good feelz. All the warm fuzzies. The writing style is evocotive and beautiful. The characters richly developed. Well done, Abbie.
This book! From page one, the story oozes off the page, full of heart and emotion. It's cozy. A feel good read that plucks your heart strings apart and pieces them back together again. It is more than a romance read—though don't get me wrong, the love triangle is well done and bitterswseet. Emmon's does a good job keeping that trope fresh. The characters are well developed, the pace is good. I struggled to find stopping points. Thats a plus.
My only complaint...and its minor, mind you, comes with the setting. Even though the book takes place in the 90's its still not enough of a time lapse to create the overly isolated island in the sound that Orca lives on. In the early pages, where she speaks of having only her father in her life...that the only other people she has ever met in her lifetime come to deliver supplies infrequently...isnt realistic. She mentions looking through her Papa's spybglass and only seeing endless ocean. The islands in the sound are close together. At the very least, she would be able to make out Mt. Constitution from anywhere in the sound, from any other island in that area. The ocean itself would be teaming with boats. People easily move from island to island to visit them. 100 years ago, that isolation would work...but then...it would be a totally different story. Having intimate knowledge of the area made it challenging for me to suspend disbelief and fall into the setting 100%. I found myself wishing that she did not specifically name any of the islands...that she left them all unknamed, and created them fresh and new and made up. When actual, specific places are name dropped...I expect to explore that reality, that realness, from the comfort of my recliner and not actually traveling to said location. I want to experience a vacation in my mind. Every time she mentioned never meeting another man in her life...never seeing boats or planes. Being so very excluded from the world...I sighed. That said, Emmons writing style is evocotave. Lyrical. Lovely. The islands depiction is beautiuful. In the end, most readers are not going to have a clue that the setting doesn't mesh fully with the story in a truthful, realistic manner. Only those with intimate knowledge of the Pacific Northwest will truly know. It's okay. The rest of the book made up for it. The parts where the characters explore Whidbey Island and Seattle and surrounding areas of the Mainland were fine.
I greatly enjoyed the family dynamics. The personalities of the brothers are well fleshed out. The romance elements are good, but the relationship between the brothers is GREAT. When Jack thinks Adam is dead...and is curled on the floor...oh my heart. Emmons gutted me. Tears may have welled. ;) I truly loved the family drama the most. Its what drove the romance, the story. Be it the conflict and tention between Orca and her father, the brothers, Orcas other family discoveries...those were the deep, delicious nuggets I loved unearthing. Toss in whales and philisophical conversations about life, love, the universe...the butterfly effect...and I was hooked.
Now, the romance. I don't normally care much for love triangles, but both love intererests were so likeable, it was difficult not to be sucked in. I love how both brothers see different sides to Orca. How both are exactly what she needs...both bring out elements inside her that she didn't know existed. It made it hard to choose who to root for, there was not just one clear cut choice as there often can be in those pesky love triangles. One brothers strength was the other brothers weakness and vice versa. Quite interesting.
The only parts that made me cringe were at the end. I am fine with the age gap. I am fine with her chosing Adam. The whirlwind "lets get married although we only met two weeks ago and you have NEVER HAD A BOYFRIEND BEFORE" just made my old fart brain sigh. Younger me would have devoured this with no issue, licked the bowl clean, and asked for more. It did remind me, however, of young, first love. My own age gap romance when I was a teenager (younger than Orca), and how that did feel like the end all, be all, in a short period of time even though I had little experience prior to said older boyfriend. So it works, it just didnt end as satisfying for the me of today. However, most will love it and eat this up so please, don't let the words of an old, jaded gal disuade you from reading. This story has all the good feelz. All the warm fuzzies. The writing style is evocotive and beautiful. The characters richly developed. Well done, Abbie.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is Emmons third book, and the third I've read by her. After the first two, I orinally thought her books were just simple and straightforward. Her writing style is clear and pleasant, and her story structure is incredibly coherent and thoughtful. With a relatively direct thesis, I thought her books were just intended to be fun, sweet, romantic, and overall easy reads. Now, am beginning to get the sense that the commonality between these characteristics might actually be naivete.
I enjoy Emmon's Youtube videos. One piece of advice she frequently gives is to write about something you believe and deeply care about, and have that as the main theme of the book. She also emphasizes the importance of planning all aspects of story out. Both recommendations show through very clearly in her writing, but in the case of Otherworld, at the book's expense. Her approach is good in theory, but I have found that her desire to write a story around a belief she already has, along with her templated story structure, results in the book neglecting the depth and nuance of the scenarios she creates in order to serve her main argument. I mentioned in my reviews of 100DoS that she neglects to consider the experiences of disabled people in order to argue that "we shouldn't let the world or even ourselves hold us back," resulting in not only harmful rhetoric but also a poorly developed theme. This similarly rings true in this book. That is to say, rather than investigating the experiences of her characters, and give depth to themes, readers are pulled through every plot beat so we can get to the predetermined resolution and be none the wiser to the tragedy, loneliness, and desire experienced by this books main character, Orca.
I wish this book spent more time giving depth to her characters in this book. Unfortunately, I could not help but feel there were certain agendas at every corner of this book. Significant age gaps are fine, good even. Fun, interesting, desirable women are naive and pure. Women who don't want to be mothers are shallow, cruel, and frivolous. Politics aside, I can't help but think that, for an author who emphasizes giving characters meaningful stories, that Emmon's isn't interested in doing this when it doesn't serve her plot. Again, her books don't investigate issues or strive to give understanding to these conflicts, they are intended to tell a very particular story. Her portrayals are incredibly simplistic (including her notions of "philosophy") and leave the reader pulled through an incredibly fast paced book with little of interest to say.
I'm not particularly interested in going further in depth into her books, as multiple other reviewers have described similar issues with this books pacing, plotline, and characters, but i take their critiques to largely by in line with my own.
I enjoy Emmon's Youtube videos. One piece of advice she frequently gives is to write about something you believe and deeply care about, and have that as the main theme of the book. She also emphasizes the importance of planning all aspects of story out. Both recommendations show through very clearly in her writing, but in the case of Otherworld, at the book's expense. Her approach is good in theory, but I have found that her desire to write a story around a belief she already has, along with her templated story structure, results in the book neglecting the depth and nuance of the scenarios she creates in order to serve her main argument. I mentioned in my reviews of 100DoS that she neglects to consider the experiences of disabled people in order to argue that "we shouldn't let the world or even ourselves hold us back," resulting in not only harmful rhetoric but also a poorly developed theme. This similarly rings true in this book. That is to say, rather than investigating the experiences of her characters, and give depth to themes, readers are pulled through every plot beat so we can get to the predetermined resolution and be none the wiser to the tragedy, loneliness, and desire experienced by this books main character, Orca.
I wish this book spent more time giving depth to her characters in this book. Unfortunately, I could not help but feel there were certain agendas at every corner of this book. Significant age gaps are fine, good even. Fun, interesting, desirable women are naive and pure. Women who don't want to be mothers are shallow, cruel, and frivolous. Politics aside, I can't help but think that, for an author who emphasizes giving characters meaningful stories, that Emmon's isn't interested in doing this when it doesn't serve her plot. Again, her books don't investigate issues or strive to give understanding to these conflicts, they are intended to tell a very particular story. Her portrayals are incredibly simplistic (including her notions of "philosophy") and leave the reader pulled through an incredibly fast paced book with little of interest to say.
I'm not particularly interested in going further in depth into her books, as multiple other reviewers have described similar issues with this books pacing, plotline, and characters, but i take their critiques to largely by in line with my own.
I finished this new standalone novel called The Otherworld today and I am still feeling giddy about it! This was the sweetest book I have read in a long time and I absolutely adored it! It is about a girl who lives in a lighthouse with her protective father, and two brothers' lives whose lives are forever changed by that girl... We meet simple and naive Orca, fiery and carefree Jack, and mature and passionate Adam. The interactions and relationships between these three was constructed and portrayed so brilliantly and perfectly, I love them and would love to continue reading about them (hint hint Abbie)!
I would say this novel could be classified as young adult genre, but definitely not limited to that by any means. It is honestly so sweet and tender, and so incredibly hard to put down. I fell in love with every single one of the characters, with the amazingly interesting storyline, and just everything about this book.
Abbie Emmons has a true talent for turning storytelling into cute romance novels with poignant streaks of truth running through them. I just love her writing style and hope to read more by her!
#theotherworld #netgalley #bookreview #abbieemmons
I would say this novel could be classified as young adult genre, but definitely not limited to that by any means. It is honestly so sweet and tender, and so incredibly hard to put down. I fell in love with every single one of the characters, with the amazingly interesting storyline, and just everything about this book.
Abbie Emmons has a true talent for turning storytelling into cute romance novels with poignant streaks of truth running through them. I just love her writing style and hope to read more by her!
#theotherworld #netgalley #bookreview #abbieemmons
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
a huge thank you to NetGalley and Abbie Emmons for sending me an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review!
“I know exactly what it is. I feel it burning inside me with the violence to destroy a forest fire. Destroying me.
The butterfly setting off a hurricane.”
I really wanted to love this book! I am a fan of Abbie and have learned a lot from her about writing my own novels.
To start on a positive note, I really loved the setting Emmons set up at the beginning of this book. Orca’s lighthouse and island felt so real to me! I found myself wanting to experience the setting myself and curl up with a book during a storm. Additionally, I loved the initial premise. If you are a fan of The Little Mermaid, Tangled, or The Summer I Turned Pretty, I think you would agree with me! Orca and Adam’s introduction had me kicking my feet and squealing. The soulmate-ism in this book was palpable and that’s one of my favorite tropes! The angst truly had me in a chokehold in some scenes. Throughout the entirety I found myself experiencing strong emotions, whether it was love, anger, annoyance or excitement. Regardless of if I enjoyed these emotions or not, they are a testament to Emmons’ skill as an author.
Now for my critiques. I think a major reason why I didn’t fall in love with this book is because nothing fully convinced me to. To begin with, I wasn’t fully convinced by the characters themselves. I felt like a lot of them were written as stencils or in support of the plot. I was actually quite surprised by this, as Emmons seems to have nailed the true need to establish internal conflict in her novels. My favorite thing to read is a complex, multifaceted character, but these characters fell flat in my opinion.
Adam Stevenson was too perfect for my liking. I adore strong male characters that are chivalrous and do the right thing. We need more representation of men that are simply good men, as they are so hard to find in real life in society. While he did have me swooning at times, Adam’s perfection was overall too surface level for me. His perfection and superiority almost appeared to be a result of his age, which is the complete wrong message to be sending to anyone anywhere. His flaws were not brought up very much in the book, and when they were, they were dismissed by multiple characters. In my opinion, there was no reason that the age gap needed to be as large or as prevalent as this book made it to be. Adam could have been 22 or 23 and this would have felt a lot more comfortable while still making the distinction that Adam was knowledgeable and held more wisdom than other characters simply because he had lived through more.
Now for Jack “I invented fun,” Stevenson (“My little hometown” my ass. He’s the epitome of Ken and his mojo dojo casa house). Oh little Jackie. I have a soft spot for this kid even though (or maybe on account of?) he appeared too ridiculous or immature at times and was clearly used to add tension to Adam and Orca’s relationship. While he loves and looks up to his brother, Jack’s entire personality is that he feels inferior to Adam (which, might I add, is more than Jeremiah Fisher would ever admit). Every love triangle with brothers that I have read puts the younger brother into a box and categorizes them as someone who will never be as good as their older brother. I would love to read a love triangle where the younger brother is strong and actually mature, not this negative stereotype that is perpetuated for the sake of creating angst. There was a certain point throughout the book that Jack got so ridiculous that I found him funny and laughed out loud, thinking, “this cannot be real.” I found myself sometimes rooting for Jack even when I didn’t like him as a person. Just for kicks and giggles.
As for our leading lady Orca Monroe, I wasn’t fully convinced that she was really as wise as she was described to be. Some parts had me narrowing my eyes, asking myself if people would really behave the way Orca did if they were in her situation and had her limited knowledge of how to interact with people and the real world. I’m not convinced that they would have acted the way Orca did. Multiple times Orca is described, both verbatim and loosely, to be the epitome of “she’s not like other girls” and I just found that to be an extremely dull and unoriginal way to characterize a female lead, not to mention condescending and redundant.
Point blank, all of our main characters largely mess up, but instead of it adding to their humanity and complexity, I just found their mistakes to be either: inadmissible, immature, inconsistent, or not quite worth my time.
As for the romance, a lot of it felt juvenile, which, again, was extremely inconsistent with how the characters were described. I wasn’t convinced that Orca and her love interest truly loved each other. This made it extremely hard to be invested in the story and in their relationship. I also wasn’t convinced that the other brother was actually in love with Orca.
All this said, when I was able to put the critiques out of my mind, I really did enjoy reading. This book was thoroughly annotated; I had a lot of opinions on what the characters said, did and felt, which I guess is better than being indifferent. I think I would have enjoyed The Otherworld more if I just accepted it for what it was (not the greatest love story of all time) and just viewed it as entertainment. And the angst did have me falling to my knees and pounding my fist on the table. This is one of those books that I truly think you should try for yourself. You may love it! (:
“I know exactly what it is. I feel it burning inside me with the violence to destroy a forest fire. Destroying me.
The butterfly setting off a hurricane.”
I really wanted to love this book! I am a fan of Abbie and have learned a lot from her about writing my own novels.
To start on a positive note, I really loved the setting Emmons set up at the beginning of this book. Orca’s lighthouse and island felt so real to me! I found myself wanting to experience the setting myself and curl up with a book during a storm. Additionally, I loved the initial premise. If you are a fan of The Little Mermaid, Tangled, or The Summer I Turned Pretty, I think you would agree with me! Orca and Adam’s introduction had me kicking my feet and squealing. The soulmate-ism in this book was palpable and that’s one of my favorite tropes! The angst truly had me in a chokehold in some scenes. Throughout the entirety I found myself experiencing strong emotions, whether it was love, anger, annoyance or excitement. Regardless of if I enjoyed these emotions or not, they are a testament to Emmons’ skill as an author.
Now for my critiques. I think a major reason why I didn’t fall in love with this book is because nothing fully convinced me to. To begin with, I wasn’t fully convinced by the characters themselves. I felt like a lot of them were written as stencils or in support of the plot. I was actually quite surprised by this, as Emmons seems to have nailed the true need to establish internal conflict in her novels. My favorite thing to read is a complex, multifaceted character, but these characters fell flat in my opinion.
Adam Stevenson was too perfect for my liking. I adore strong male characters that are chivalrous and do the right thing. We need more representation of men that are simply good men, as they are so hard to find in real life in society. While he did have me swooning at times, Adam’s perfection was overall too surface level for me. His perfection and superiority almost appeared to be a result of his age, which is the complete wrong message to be sending to anyone anywhere. His flaws were not brought up very much in the book, and when they were, they were dismissed by multiple characters. In my opinion, there was no reason that the age gap needed to be as large or as prevalent as this book made it to be. Adam could have been 22 or 23 and this would have felt a lot more comfortable while still making the distinction that Adam was knowledgeable and held more wisdom than other characters simply because he had lived through more.
Now for Jack “I invented fun,” Stevenson (“My little hometown” my ass. He’s the epitome of Ken and his mojo dojo casa house). Oh little Jackie. I have a soft spot for this kid even though (or maybe on account of?) he appeared too ridiculous or immature at times and was clearly used to add tension to Adam and Orca’s relationship. While he loves and looks up to his brother, Jack’s entire personality is that he feels inferior to Adam (which, might I add, is more than Jeremiah Fisher would ever admit). Every love triangle with brothers that I have read puts the younger brother into a box and categorizes them as someone who will never be as good as their older brother. I would love to read a love triangle where the younger brother is strong and actually mature, not this negative stereotype that is perpetuated for the sake of creating angst. There was a certain point throughout the book that Jack got so ridiculous that I found him funny and laughed out loud, thinking, “this cannot be real.” I found myself sometimes rooting for Jack even when I didn’t like him as a person. Just for kicks and giggles.
As for our leading lady Orca Monroe, I wasn’t fully convinced that she was really as wise as she was described to be. Some parts had me narrowing my eyes, asking myself if people would really behave the way Orca did if they were in her situation and had her limited knowledge of how to interact with people and the real world. I’m not convinced that they would have acted the way Orca did. Multiple times Orca is described, both verbatim and loosely, to be the epitome of “she’s not like other girls” and I just found that to be an extremely dull and unoriginal way to characterize a female lead, not to mention condescending and redundant.
Point blank, all of our main characters largely mess up, but instead of it adding to their humanity and complexity, I just found their mistakes to be either: inadmissible, immature, inconsistent, or not quite worth my time.
As for the romance, a lot of it felt juvenile, which, again, was extremely inconsistent with how the characters were described. I wasn’t convinced that Orca and her love interest truly loved each other. This made it extremely hard to be invested in the story and in their relationship. I also wasn’t convinced that the other brother was actually in love with Orca.
All this said, when I was able to put the critiques out of my mind, I really did enjoy reading. This book was thoroughly annotated; I had a lot of opinions on what the characters said, did and felt, which I guess is better than being indifferent. I think I would have enjoyed The Otherworld more if I just accepted it for what it was (not the greatest love story of all time) and just viewed it as entertainment. And the angst did have me falling to my knees and pounding my fist on the table. This is one of those books that I truly think you should try for yourself. You may love it! (:
First and foremost, I want to express my thanks to Abbie for letting me receive this ARC copy to read. I do apologize it took me a while but I want to say I burned through this book in probably a span of 3 days. I have been following Abbie personally for a while on her YouTube channel and I really appreciate all of her hard work of helping us aspiring authors so I wanted to take a look on the person that writes their craft. Granted there are many things that I liked about the book and there are things I am concerned about.
To get things out of the way, I do not believe I am the target audience for this book. I am not someone that seeks out this type of contemporary romance, maybe I would if I was much younger, but I think personally this isn't something I would be in to. But that doesn't mean there weren't some parts I didn't enjoy.
Things I liked:
- Ms. Abbie if you are reading this I need to let you know your writing is absolutely amazing. I love reading all of your descriptions it provided so much of the world building making the otherworld so beautiful and colorful. I love the contrast between all the characters' places (The Lighthouse, Stevensons' house, that one Seattle apartment, San Juan Island, etc.). I also love the usage of similes and metaphors to describe the emotions. This is going to be the one thing I will look after when studying sentence construction.
- Along the lines of description I love the feel of the lighthouse. I have been dying for a cottagecore-like book and this book really did satisfy that need. I wasn't expecting that all and I can totally feel myself immersed in Orca's lighthouse, island life. It almost makes me feel I want to live a beautiful romanticized life like that too.
- The romance was so cute and after reading this book I realize I am such a huge sucker for romance. Some of the things The main couple do together was so so cute like this one line about how Orca wants to have babies with Adam and that line for some reason just made me gush.
- The pacing was pretty good, the middle part was probably the best part of the whole book which usually people say that was the slump. And coming from someone who isn't the target audience, Abbie really got me because that part made me stay up all night just to find out what was going to happen next when Orca was meeting that special person in Seattle.
Things I didn't like:
- My biggest concern is the age gap. At first I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that Orca and Adam had this romance with a huge age difference. Since I am close to Adam's age and I have been a high school teacher I just find it odd and a bit inappropriate I get it's probably supposed to illustrate the themes of forbidden love and fate and such but I just wish the characters were either not that age or just shorten the age gap.
- Orca's age and incompetence. Sure, I do buy that she is intelligent by reading all kinds of books and learning how nature works by immersing herself every single day. But I find it really hard to believe that she is able to make a decent conversation with a stranger that crashlanded in her lighthouse from not conversing with anyone except her dad. I just think she would have some kind of lack of social skills? That's just what I get again I just find it hard to believe that suddenly she has a sparkling romance with a handsome man from not talking to anyone else after 18 years.
- I think a lot of people would agree on this but the insta-romance was unbelievable to me. That was the moment I was starting to question it a bit. I understand this is supposed to fit with the themes of the butterfly effect but I just felt like it came on way too fast.
- Jack annoyed the hell out of me I knew from the start there was no way he was going to get the girl. But I think this is also coming from someone that also likes reading about emotionally intelligent gentlemen type of leading men. I get Jack is supposed to be an immature teenager but damn he was so annoying.
- Some of the dialogue and lines were just really cheesy but most of that stemmed from Jack and Orca at the beginning but I got over that when I realized that's probably going to be how the book will be.
- I mentioned the pacing was fantastic but I felt like the ending with Papa kind of came out of nowhere but I also kind of see how it ties the themes all together.
Overall again, I am grateful to receive this early copy and I am glad to have read this. I would recommend this book to others that I think may enjoy, it's just not the book for me. But congrats Abbie for publishing a wonderful story overall!
To get things out of the way, I do not believe I am the target audience for this book. I am not someone that seeks out this type of contemporary romance, maybe I would if I was much younger, but I think personally this isn't something I would be in to. But that doesn't mean there weren't some parts I didn't enjoy.
Things I liked:
- Ms. Abbie if you are reading this I need to let you know your writing is absolutely amazing. I love reading all of your descriptions it provided so much of the world building making the otherworld so beautiful and colorful. I love the contrast between all the characters' places (The Lighthouse, Stevensons' house, that one Seattle apartment, San Juan Island, etc.). I also love the usage of similes and metaphors to describe the emotions. This is going to be the one thing I will look after when studying sentence construction.
- Along the lines of description I love the feel of the lighthouse. I have been dying for a cottagecore-like book and this book really did satisfy that need. I wasn't expecting that all and I can totally feel myself immersed in Orca's lighthouse, island life. It almost makes me feel I want to live a beautiful romanticized life like that too.
- The romance was so cute and after reading this book I realize I am such a huge sucker for romance. Some of the things The main couple do together was so so cute like this one line about how Orca wants to have babies with Adam and that line for some reason just made me gush.
- The pacing was pretty good, the middle part was probably the best part of the whole book which usually people say that was the slump. And coming from someone who isn't the target audience, Abbie really got me because that part made me stay up all night just to find out what was going to happen next when Orca was meeting that special person in Seattle.
Things I didn't like:
- My biggest concern is the age gap. At first I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that Orca and Adam had this romance with a huge age difference. Since I am close to Adam's age and I have been a high school teacher I just find it odd and a bit inappropriate I get it's probably supposed to illustrate the themes of forbidden love and fate and such but I just wish the characters were either not that age or just shorten the age gap.
- Orca's age and incompetence. Sure, I do buy that she is intelligent by reading all kinds of books and learning how nature works by immersing herself every single day. But I find it really hard to believe that she is able to make a decent conversation with a stranger that crashlanded in her lighthouse from not conversing with anyone except her dad. I just think she would have some kind of lack of social skills? That's just what I get again I just find it hard to believe that suddenly she has a sparkling romance with a handsome man from not talking to anyone else after 18 years.
- I think a lot of people would agree on this but the insta-romance was unbelievable to me. That was the moment I was starting to question it a bit. I understand this is supposed to fit with the themes of the butterfly effect but I just felt like it came on way too fast.
- Jack annoyed the hell out of me I knew from the start there was no way he was going to get the girl. But I think this is also coming from someone that also likes reading about emotionally intelligent gentlemen type of leading men. I get Jack is supposed to be an immature teenager but damn he was so annoying.
- Some of the dialogue and lines were just really cheesy but most of that stemmed from Jack and Orca at the beginning but I got over that when I realized that's probably going to be how the book will be.
- I mentioned the pacing was fantastic but I felt like the ending with Papa kind of came out of nowhere but I also kind of see how it ties the themes all together.
Overall again, I am grateful to receive this early copy and I am glad to have read this. I would recommend this book to others that I think may enjoy, it's just not the book for me. But congrats Abbie for publishing a wonderful story overall!
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced