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mandygris's review against another edition
3.0
How often do you find a romance, written by a man from the perspective of a man? I think that's kind of great. My grandpa used to read a bunch of romance novels. Growing up, I didn't think that was weird. I see now, that was actually pretty rare. Strangely, romance is a genre where women predominate in writing the perspective of both genders and men are woefully outnumbered. Reading a man's take on a romance is something I couldn't pass up.
I think there are certainly differences, you will find. Morgan is such a unique character though, that this is not a case of an atypical man and it would be difficult to compare to most cookie-cutter romances. I rather think this was a delightful tale of a man's quest for love, and the foibles of putting himself out there.
I was going to rate this 3 stars, but I think it deserves 4 because it's quite unique to itself, and the description is indeed quite wonderful as other reviewers have stated.
I think there are certainly differences, you will find. Morgan is such a unique character though, that this is not a case of an atypical man and it would be difficult to compare to most cookie-cutter romances. I rather think this was a delightful tale of a man's quest for love, and the foibles of putting himself out there.
I was going to rate this 3 stars, but I think it deserves 4 because it's quite unique to itself, and the description is indeed quite wonderful as other reviewers have stated.
pitterpatterbooks's review
2.0
The idea of desperately wanting to find love isn't a rare concept. Day after day people from every corner of the world go on dates in hopes that they're finally about to meet the one. Maybe they met them at a gathering, maybe they were set up by mutual friends, or maybe the met online. Or maybe they're like Morgan Stanfield and thousands of other men and decide that the woman of their dreams is in Russia and sets out on an Internet quest to find his future bride.
I want to start off here because this was my biggest issue with the book. Somehow, Morgan is absolutely convinced that his one and only chance at love is through a Russian mail order bride website. He spends his time superficially perusing said website, judging these woman, who he expects to become his bride, solely on their looks. At times, the way Morgan speaks of these woman throughout the book seems very fetishized. And the worst part is he's unsuccessfully used the site to meet a woman before. It just didn't sit right with me. It felt like the objectification of the women on these types of websites was being romanticized, and the feminist in me could not get on board with it.
That said, I did love the pacing of this book. Sometimes I just need a book that is low on drama and high on dialogue, and the way Scozzari wrote about Morgan's travels and activities in Russia, it really felt like we were right there with him and I appreciated that. While I really didn't like Morgan and found him to be a bit of a pity party with entitlement issues, I didn't mind "traveling" with him, so to speak.
Unfortunately, good pacing really isn't enough to make up for one dimensional characters, misogynistic undertones, and a downright lackluster ending.
This book would have benefitted from stronger characters and tighter friendships. The friendships in this book were severely lacking, and by the way Morgan described his "friends," I had to question why he even associated with them to begin with. The bond he created with Edgar was stronger than what I got from his interactions with his friends back home. It's hard to connect with a book when you can't even connect with the main character.
Most of the time I didn't even like him.
I don't post spoilers but I will say that I would have rated this book higher if the ending had some sort of direction. The way this book ended didn't leave me feeling like I'd been enlightened or that this journey with Morgan meant something. I just felt cheated and it felt like Morgan had traveled across the globe just to stick his foot in his mouth hundreds of pages later.
I want to thank Frank Scozzari for being kind enough to send me a copy of his book. I absolutely love the cover, and though it may not have been the book for me, I still appreciate it very much.
This review was originally posted on Pitter Patter Book Reviews
I want to start off here because this was my biggest issue with the book. Somehow, Morgan is absolutely convinced that his one and only chance at love is through a Russian mail order bride website. He spends his time superficially perusing said website, judging these woman, who he expects to become his bride, solely on their looks. At times, the way Morgan speaks of these woman throughout the book seems very fetishized. And the worst part is he's unsuccessfully used the site to meet a woman before. It just didn't sit right with me. It felt like the objectification of the women on these types of websites was being romanticized, and the feminist in me could not get on board with it.
That said, I did love the pacing of this book. Sometimes I just need a book that is low on drama and high on dialogue, and the way Scozzari wrote about Morgan's travels and activities in Russia, it really felt like we were right there with him and I appreciated that. While I really didn't like Morgan and found him to be a bit of a pity party with entitlement issues, I didn't mind "traveling" with him, so to speak.
Unfortunately, good pacing really isn't enough to make up for one dimensional characters, misogynistic undertones, and a downright lackluster ending.
This book would have benefitted from stronger characters and tighter friendships. The friendships in this book were severely lacking, and by the way Morgan described his "friends," I had to question why he even associated with them to begin with. The bond he created with Edgar was stronger than what I got from his interactions with his friends back home. It's hard to connect with a book when you can't even connect with the main character.
Most of the time I didn't even like him.
I don't post spoilers but I will say that I would have rated this book higher if the ending had some sort of direction. The way this book ended didn't leave me feeling like I'd been enlightened or that this journey with Morgan meant something. I just felt cheated and it felt like Morgan had traveled across the globe just to stick his foot in his mouth hundreds of pages later.
I want to thank Frank Scozzari for being kind enough to send me a copy of his book. I absolutely love the cover, and though it may not have been the book for me, I still appreciate it very much.
This review was originally posted on Pitter Patter Book Reviews
1awritr1's review against another edition
5.0
This is a tale of love from a far and its mesmerizing qualities. It's a delightful, compelling story that is filled with humor. Frank weaves an excellent story that I couldn't put down.
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