Scan barcode
A review by hmgelo02
Fireworks Over Toccoa by Jeffrey Stepakoff
2.0
I was really hoping to like this book more than I did. I'm a fan of love stories and tales of romance that surpasses time and distance a la Nicholas Sparks, but this book just didn't do it for me.
To me this story was just another retelling of the same unrequited young love that gets repeated over and over through the generations of authors who tackle this genre:; The Notebook; and even the storyline from the movie Titanic. In essence, a free spirited young woman from a well-to-do family has her life properly laid out in front of her, with a marriage to the perfect man waiting upon his return home from war. While she waits she happens to fall in love with a dark, broody man who is just passing through the stuffy, gossipy Southern town. A whirlwind romance ensues and heartbreak is inevitable. In the end, the love story is a cautionary tale to the generations that follow in its footsteps: to follow the deepest desires of one's heart, rather than doing "the right thing" simply for the sake of doing so.
This was a very fast read for me; I think I spent no more than four hours total in its pages. That's no surprise, really, given that the book feels more like an outline for a book rather than the finished product. This book felt like an author's first published book; the writing is eloquent and well-organized but the prose is filled with details upon details. What I think must have been intended to help place readers in time and location felt, to me, a bit like overkill. I wanted more substance and less minutiae, and to me this book fell short of its mark, especially when compared to other contemporary authors who have tackled this topic before.
In all, this book was an excellent attempt that just didn't live up to its full potential.
To me this story was just another retelling of the same unrequited young love that gets repeated over and over through the generations of authors who tackle this genre:
This was a very fast read for me; I think I spent no more than four hours total in its pages. That's no surprise, really, given that the book feels more like an outline for a book rather than the finished product. This book felt like an author's first published book; the writing is eloquent and well-organized but the prose is filled with details upon details. What I think must have been intended to help place readers in time and location felt, to me, a bit like overkill. I wanted more substance and less minutiae, and to me this book fell short of its mark, especially when compared to other contemporary authors who have tackled this topic before.
In all, this book was an excellent attempt that just didn't live up to its full potential.