Love Is a Battlefield by Annalisa DaughetyMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book was a bit of a different read for me. At first the beginning chapters didn't grab my interest, but I kept reading to see if the writing would smooth out eventually. Overall, while the story itself was interesting, the writing style was distracting making hard to stay motivated to keep reading. However, the book does have potential, and certainly had it's shining moments. Here are five aspects I liked about the book, as well as five areas that, in my opinion, could have been improved.
Five Good Aspects
1. The portrayal of relationships in the book was realistic, some being wonderful and others not so much. The comradeship between all of the park employees was fun to read.
2. The slow build of the romantic relationship between Kristy and Ace was well done. Their relationship was not instant but built up slowly. My favorite scene was when (view spoiler)
3. Ace was a likable character, in fact I almost liked him more than Kristy. He did his best to understand others, and helped out when he could.
4. In the past I've come across books that drone on and on about historical facts, which I tend to skip over in order to get back to the story. Not so with this book. The historical facts are woven into the story in a way that makes the information interesting and important to the story without being boring.
5. When Zach's character was introduced, I knew that he would play a negative role in the story. However, I really liked how Kristy was compassionate and sympathetic towards Zach, instead of taking her anger out on him.
Five Problem Areas
1. The biggest issue I had with the book was the writing style which relied on a large amount of telling narration and over-explanation. I found that those areas distracted me from the story.
2. Some of the conflict seemed forced, especially towards the end. The death of a hardly mentioned character did not affect me, so I found the conflict after that to be lacking.
3. Throughout the book I just couldn't decide whether I liked Kristy or not. She could be confident and feisty in one chapter, but then whiny and insecure in the next.
4. I didn't mind the fact that Kristy's ex-fiance, Mark, got some attention in the story, but when he (view spoiler) I was a little annoyed.
5. I guess this would be an insignificant issue, and maybe it's because the story is set in a tourist area, but I found it strange that whenever Kristy went to a restaurant it was always busy.
In conclusion, this book took me a bit longer to finish, as I had to force my way through chunks of unneeded explanation, but I did like the story and I'm giving it three stars because it has potential.
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