Grade – C+
Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – None
Genre – Contemporary
Series – Kowalski Family #6
Reviewed by Anne
The Kowalski books are some of my all time
favorites. They are a family I love to
hang out with. This book is my least favorite of the series, though. I’ve been thinking about
why that is, and I think it was very realistic (relationships are complicated and messy) and therefore had less escapism than I like. Let me
give you the set up.
Josh is the youngest in the Kowalski family, and he
got left running the family lodge when all of his siblings left town and found
other careers and adventures. He’s
always wanted to get out and travel and have a chance to do something else, even if he doesn’t have
a certain something in mind.
Katie is his best friend and is nearly family, as
her mother helped raise the Kowalski kids.
They’ve known each other forever, and she’s loved Josh as long as she
can remember. She doesn’t let him know
about this, as she’s afraid she’ll lose him as a friend.
This story takes place during a period of time
where the Kowalski family has finally realized that Josh may not want to run
the lodge and needs a chance to get out of town. At the same time, he’s finally seeing Katie
as a woman, not just his best friend. But
getting out of town and being with Katie long term seem unlikely to happen
together, because she’s firmly rooted in their small town with no desire to
leave. So what will happen?
I’ll tell you what will happen. I will come to dislike Josh because getting
out of town is his primary concern. He
doesn’t hide this. Katie always knows
it. So it overshadows their whole
relationship. And it leaves me wishing
she would dump him because he’s unable to conceive of a way to be with her and
to travel.
Don’t get me wrong, I was very sympathetic to
Josh. Shannon Stacey did a really good
job in writing him. I understood he wasn’t
just being an asshole, that he really needed a chance to spread his wings
outside their small town. He sacrificed
his own desires to keep the family business and tradition going for a long time. He didn’t hate the business, but he hated that he
never had a choice about leaving.
However, I think Ms. Stacey did such a good job writing his character
that the resolution for the story left me with some doubts about how it would
all work out. I was screaming in my head
(and in my reader notes) for compromise while I read, and I felt like I never
got it.
The book does have plenty of Kowalski funny
moments, and I never wanted to stop reading,
I think it was just a little painfully real to me.
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