Monday 23 September 2013

Review: Natalie Ward's "Stubborn Love."

Review: Natalie Ward's "Stubborn Love."

Synopsis:

Five years ago, tragedy brought Jared and Mia together. A tragedy that was the start of an unlikely source of support, a true friendship and eventually, deep, heart-stopping love. Until the day something pushed them apart, forcing one of them to let the other one go.
Now, over the course of a day and a night, Jared and Mia will finally talk about how it all went wrong. How something which seemed so perfect and true, was so easily broken. And just when they think they’ve found their way back to each other, their love, will once more be put to the ultimate test.

Sometimes, you never realise how much you can hurt the one you love.
Sometimes, you never realise the lengths you’ll go to, to help someone you love.
And sometimes, you never realise just how stubborn love can be.
Because it’s impossible to let somebody go, when you never stopped loving them in the first place.

Review: Kirsty Lander: 

I'm so sad that I have to give this book a low rating, and truth be told I'd say it was more 2.5* but I just can't give it anymore.

I don't know what went wrong here, but from the beginning I just wasn't feeling the story, the characters or the writing. I'll start off with the story..

I was a mahoosive fan of "I Love You to Death," everything about it was so amazing, and so of course when I knew Natalie Ward was writing another book about them I was so excited.. it was going to be Luke's book and I couldn't wait. But then Natalie changed the course of which she was writing, Jared and Mia were calling to her and they had to come next, I wasn't so excited about them. I couldn't remember their part in the story and wasn't interested at all. So, on to the actual characters. I had no issue with Mia or Jared, well maybe I did Mia a little bit. Jared was fine, I actually felt sorry for him (woohoo for some kind of emotional connection), but Mia? Nope, I had nothing. If I heard her say words along the lines of.. "I want to make it up to you, I want to explain to you, or I'm sorry for pushing you away" then I was going to freaking scream. JUST SPIT IT OUT ALREADY, WOMAN. I knew from the off that when the 'big reveal' finally came out I was going to be disappointed. I just knew it. The amount of back and forth Mia and Jared went through to get to the point of her telling him was far too much. I lost interest. 

And on to my issues with the writing.. ugh it really pains me to have to write any of this because I really bloody loved "I Love You to Death" and I had zero issues with the writing that time around, but here? It didn't work for me at all. To begin with, the present chapters were told entirely from Mia's POV and that was fine, and then going back to the past was told in Jared's, again, I had no issue with that. But then as we got on, for some reason, we were being told the same scene from both of their POV and it got horribly boring. If I read it in one POV first, I didn't want to read again, I skimmed to try and get the story moving along. It just bored me. 

Oh I don't know why this one didn't work for me like this, but it really wasn't my book at all. Maybe others will love it, I've certainly seen some shining reviews and that's fine. I totally respect everybody's opinions and I hope that others love this book, it just wasn't for me. I will continue with the story, and when Luke and Ash's next book comes out I will be reading.

After thinking about it some more, I've come to realise half the issue (for me) was the length of the book. I think had this been a novella, a lot of the repetitiveness could have been avoided and I wouldn't have felt so bored whilst reading. A novella could have achieved more emotional impact by not having all of the back and forth. Maybe?
I rated "Stubborn Love" 2.5 Hearts

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