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A review by capyval
Dear Aaron by Mariana Zapata
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.0
Torn between rating this book 2.5 or 3 stars. The book hooked me, and I like being hooked by a book, and I guess that was because I was rooting for the main couple. But, other than that, I found many things in it that I disliked, including:
- The slow burn is WAY too slow. Sometimes I felt the author was just stalling, to make the book longer.
- It takes a while until the author decides to switch from letters + chat messages to actual prose, and when she does, it turns out her prose is not great. I often didn't understand what she meant, or I had to re-read sentences because her structure was messy; but what bothered me the most was her cheap use of language, naming the characters as "the blond one", "the young girl", and so on... Even though this book is narrated in first person when it uses traditional prose. It felt ridiculous.
- The book repeats often that "looks don't matter", yet, the male and main love interest looks like a model. And he's present like that, and this fact is repeated again and again, fetishising the shape of his face and how muscular he is.... Blergh, I really dislike when books do this.
- It include disgusting descriptions of food, or what could be called, animal cruelty. It's totally uncalled and horrible. If you are senstive to this, stop reading for a page or two as soon as they start to talk about frog legs at a restaurant (I wish I had done that).
- They go fishing and clamming. As a vegetarian, I was not amused.
- The sex part wins the cheapest writing award for the whole book. It actually made me laugh (when the author wasn't including a joke), and roll my eyes. Who the heck finds sexy to say "I was impaled on him" 😖?!
All in all: nice idea for a book, badly executed.
- The slow burn is WAY too slow. Sometimes I felt the author was just stalling, to make the book longer.
- It takes a while until the author decides to switch from letters + chat messages to actual prose, and when she does, it turns out her prose is not great. I often didn't understand what she meant, or I had to re-read sentences because her structure was messy; but what bothered me the most was her cheap use of language, naming the characters as "the blond one", "the young girl", and so on... Even though this book is narrated in first person when it uses traditional prose. It felt ridiculous.
- The book repeats often that "looks don't matter", yet, the male and main love interest looks like a model. And he's present like that, and this fact is repeated again and again, fetishising the shape of his face and how muscular he is.... Blergh, I really dislike when books do this.
- It include disgusting descriptions of food, or what could be called, animal cruelty. It's totally uncalled and horrible. If you are senstive to this, stop reading for a page or two as soon as they start to talk about frog legs at a restaurant (I wish I had done that).
- They go fishing and clamming. As a vegetarian, I was not amused.
- The sex part wins the cheapest writing award for the whole book. It actually made me laugh (when the author wasn't including a joke), and roll my eyes. Who the heck finds sexy to say "I was impaled on him" 😖?!
All in all: nice idea for a book, badly executed.