A review by tostita
A Cowboy to Remember by Rebekah Weatherspoon

emotional slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This was not the right book for me. I wasn’t really in the mood for a contemporary but I read it anyway, and that part is on me. Beyond that, the pace felt plodding, and there was such an overwhelming number of side characters with full names and backstories that it was hard to keep track of them all, until I realized that almost none of them were actually relevant and they could be instantly forgotten with no loss. More fundamentally, the mmc was frankly not good enough for the fmc. He took advantage of her compromised cognitive capacity to push for the relationship he wanted, which is super sketchy (and everyone who raised objections was portrayed in the text as controlling and prudish, despite having the right of it, ethically speaking). He was arrogant, pushy, emotionally stingy and immature, and none of that was resolved early enough to be believable to me. By the end of the book he was just beginning his journey to thinking about relationships like a partner instead of a dictator. I could not see what was so compelling about him to the fmc, beyond that he was good looking and had been nearby when she was young and impressionable. He should have been a learning experience that she left in the rearview mirror while she moved on with people who were actually willing to be present in her life.