Review by janaeam - When Forty Blooms

janaeam 's review for:

When Forty Blooms by Jacinta Howard

3.75

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I was very excited to get a new offering from this author. I’ve read her entire catalogue and appreciate her voice and view in the romance genre. I love the cover and the plot of focusing on a woman turning forty discovering what makes her happy and rediscovering love. There’s definitely a strong archetype to most of her characters: emotionally vulnerable and slightly (sometimes highly) unstable woman falls deeply and earth-shatteringly in love with a emotionally steady and committed man, but usually after he falls first and/or hardest. And that’s not a criticism, necessarily. I actually quite enjoy the trope of the MMC falling first lol. But based on the blurb of this book, I was hoping for something that differentiated itself a bit more from her previous works. Simone could have been any of her past FMC, the main distinction was that she was turning forty, and how that was the catalyst for certain things unfolding in the plot. Same goes for Jackson. A plus of her writing based off her strong archetypes is that it lends itself to a certain type of world building because her characters are all people that would exist in the same social and networking circles. The biggest critique I have is that within the strong outline and archetypes she tends to follow, I’d like to see more unique nuance in the storylines and character backstories. I counted at least 4-5 character quirks/themes that have appeared in previous stories, and I think that’s a big part of why it feels like the same kind of girl and guy every time. More minor were the more than a handful of grammatical errors that started really adding up. I liked that the secondary storyline with Caleb and Tiana reminded me of the Forever Netflix series; young Black teens navigating first loves amongst normal teen life and sometimes more tumultuous circumstances and enjoyed seeing Simone and Jackson having to navigate parenting through this. The author may have been teasing a future story between two of the secondary characters and I’d definitely read it even if I am itching for more variation in her characters, because she does a great job of telling the story with the lens she uses and the expression of the type of characters she’s written, so I’m looking forward to more stories and growth from her. 🤎

Content Warnings