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A review by samnreader
Float Plan by Trish Doller
3.25
hile this book was undoubtedly good, there were times I was regretful?
First, it opens with a still deep in grief Anna, reeling from her fiance's suicide and discovering him. I wouldn't normally start out with something like this, but it deserves more than a passing note. Anna's sadness-depression really-is surface for much of the novel. I read 3 pages and walked away from it for the afternoon. So, I want you to know that in case that may hurt you to read about. There is also discussion of Ben throughout, and I didn't know if I liked how he was used as a device in that way. So I need to say that too. I think in a sense some of that is very honest and true-to-life because suicide is complex, but there are times that doesn't play well to move intimacy or personal growth along-in my opinion. It was a risk, and generally it was executed well, however-for me-it grated at times.
And while this book is really lovely overall, I had that creeping but in my mind.
Keane is a near-perfect hero from him literally saving her as the meet cute to him literally saving her later to ... well you get it. It'd be impossible not to love him. Nothing was wrong with him. He was quite literally teaching her she could save herself, always there, always saving her. So this isn't that book where the heroine saves herself, but where the heroine has it pointed out to her that she is capable of doing so. Rarely does she steer her course, which is apt for this book, right until the very end. And that conflict was super unsatisfying to me.
So the main conflict here is grief and anger toward her dead fiance-and her learning her own path from there. I know-I know-I am really categorizing this as a romance. Because it very frankly is. But I felt that despite forced proximity and a heavily couple-focused novel being very okay with me, this failed in many romance fiction aspects. At least, for my contemporary eye. At times, because of Keane's lack of need for growth it just hit me that it might have been going up against my ever-growing expectations.
If you got through all that and want to read about a woman letting go of her plan,her grief, her anger and falling in love along the way, it really is a solid book. There's a lot to like. But I'm an absolute snot about so much contemporary romance that in that sense it fell short for me. 3.5 rounded down, for I've no need to reread.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
First, it opens with a still deep in grief Anna, reeling from her fiance's suicide and discovering him. I wouldn't normally start out with something like this, but it deserves more than a passing note. Anna's sadness-depression really-is surface for much of the novel. I read 3 pages and walked away from it for the afternoon. So, I want you to know that in case that may hurt you to read about. There is also discussion of Ben throughout, and I didn't know if I liked how he was used as a device in that way. So I need to say that too. I think in a sense some of that is very honest and true-to-life because suicide is complex, but there are times that doesn't play well to move intimacy or personal growth along-in my opinion. It was a risk, and generally it was executed well, however-for me-it grated at times.
And while this book is really lovely overall, I had that creeping but in my mind.
Keane is a near-perfect hero from him literally saving her as the meet cute to him literally saving her later to ... well you get it. It'd be impossible not to love him. Nothing was wrong with him. He was quite literally teaching her she could save herself, always there, always saving her. So this isn't that book where the heroine saves herself, but where the heroine has it pointed out to her that she is capable of doing so. Rarely does she steer her course, which is apt for this book, right until the very end. And that conflict was super unsatisfying to me.
So the main conflict here is grief and anger toward her dead fiance-and her learning her own path from there. I know-I know-I am really categorizing this as a romance. Because it very frankly is. But I felt that despite forced proximity and a heavily couple-focused novel being very okay with me, this failed in many romance fiction aspects. At least, for my contemporary eye. At times, because of Keane's lack of need for growth it just hit me that it might have been going up against my ever-growing expectations.
If you got through all that and want to read about a woman letting go of her plan,her grief, her anger and falling in love along the way, it really is a solid book. There's a lot to like. But I'm an absolute snot about so much contemporary romance that in that sense it fell short for me. 3.5 rounded down, for I've no need to reread.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide