Overall: 2/5
Plots and Themes: 2/5
Characters: 1/5
Writing Style: 2/5
Attention Grabbing: 2/5
A New Shade of Summer is a contemporary romance, set as third in a series but can be read as a standalone as I didn't even know it was third in the series. It follows Callie Quinn, an artist who loves to travel and is against setting any sort of roots. Visiting her sister and her niece and nephew in Lenox every summer is about as sedentary as she gets. Until she meets Davis and begins to wonder if maybe there's a better way.
I'd like to start off by saying there's a big difference to me between a clean romance and Christian fiction. This book wasn't marketed to me as Christian fiction, maybe I didn't read into it enough but it was frustrating to bring all the talk of religion in so far into the book and trying to make it into a facet of morality and integrity. Now maybe I'm just not the target audience, but it didn't seem like Callie was either so it felt very out of character for her to just jump on the religious bandwagon. Maybe that's just me being judgmental though.
A big issue was character arcs for me. I didn't see growth that was realistic to who they were at the starting point. No spoilers, but I felt Callie just ditched everything that made her unique in favor of a more conventional life. I don't feel like her hangups or her personality should have allowed for it and it felt very forced. That wasn't a problem till like the last fifth of the book, but it really took away from the conclusion. So I liked it at first, but the whole resolution just wasn't good for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment