Jan's Reviews > Madly
Madly (New York, #2)
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by
2.5 stars. It was okay......
This novel didn't really grab me like the first one in this series did (Truly). Allie, the h in this book, was the sister of May, the h from Truly. Now in this second book, Allie has come from Wisconsin to New York, like May did in the first book. But for me the plot of this one was pretty iffy. Supposedly, at the start Allie is acting out being a 'spy' (trench coat and all -ugh) and has followed her mother to New York to check out her mother's secret life. I felt a bit like Allie was a kindergarten kid!
In fact through quite a lot of the book, Allie is not very likeable (to this reader, at least). She is depicted as mixed-up and kooky and loveably zany, but it just didn't come across successfully for me. The 'mixed-up' stuff was OK but got a bit tedious after a while. There were a lot of heavy, analytical, philosophical discussions between characters as they tried to sort out their lives. But I started to feel like I didn't care that much.
Allie's zany retro fashion sense didn't work for me either. Some of her outfits (a Grecian 'toga'?) just sounded too ridiculous to me. With each new outfit of hers I started feeling a mental eyeroll coming on.
Winston was nice, but he didn't have anything like the sexy charisma of Ben from the first book. Sadly he also got a little overanalysed during the book, and his issues with his mixed-up relationships with his ex-wife and daughter started to bore me. After a while I was skimming some of the long, deep conversations. It's not that I don't like reading about characters getting their problems sorted. I guess I wasn't invested enough in either he or Allie to care that much. :-/
The other problem I had in the book stemmed from the first book. In 'Madly', the revelations about Allie and May's mother and her 'other life' just didn't convince or ring true to me. I just could not see the Wisconsin mom from 'Truly' in the character depicted in this book, especially near the end of 'Madly'. I think for it to work (for readers of both books, anyway) there needed to be more groundwork for this character's real personality in the first book. So for me, the whole plot felt like a stretch. And overall I just got a bit sick of Allie's immature behaviour and lack of self-awareness.
Because I loved 'Truly', and will no doubt read it again some time in the future, I will probably buy the third book, 'Completely' when it comes out. But I don't think I'll be bothering with this one again.
This novel didn't really grab me like the first one in this series did (Truly). Allie, the h in this book, was the sister of May, the h from Truly. Now in this second book, Allie has come from Wisconsin to New York, like May did in the first book. But for me the plot of this one was pretty iffy. Supposedly, at the start Allie is acting out being a 'spy' (trench coat and all -ugh) and has followed her mother to New York to check out her mother's secret life. I felt a bit like Allie was a kindergarten kid!
In fact through quite a lot of the book, Allie is not very likeable (to this reader, at least). She is depicted as mixed-up and kooky and loveably zany, but it just didn't come across successfully for me. The 'mixed-up' stuff was OK but got a bit tedious after a while. There were a lot of heavy, analytical, philosophical discussions between characters as they tried to sort out their lives. But I started to feel like I didn't care that much.
Allie's zany retro fashion sense didn't work for me either. Some of her outfits (a Grecian 'toga'?) just sounded too ridiculous to me. With each new outfit of hers I started feeling a mental eyeroll coming on.
Winston was nice, but he didn't have anything like the sexy charisma of Ben from the first book. Sadly he also got a little overanalysed during the book, and his issues with his mixed-up relationships with his ex-wife and daughter started to bore me. After a while I was skimming some of the long, deep conversations. It's not that I don't like reading about characters getting their problems sorted. I guess I wasn't invested enough in either he or Allie to care that much. :-/
The other problem I had in the book stemmed from the first book. In 'Madly', the revelations about Allie and May's mother and her 'other life' just didn't convince or ring true to me. I just could not see the Wisconsin mom from 'Truly' in the character depicted in this book, especially near the end of 'Madly'. I think for it to work (for readers of both books, anyway) there needed to be more groundwork for this character's real personality in the first book. So for me, the whole plot felt like a stretch. And overall I just got a bit sick of Allie's immature behaviour and lack of self-awareness.
Because I loved 'Truly', and will no doubt read it again some time in the future, I will probably buy the third book, 'Completely' when it comes out. But I don't think I'll be bothering with this one again.
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Reading Progress
March 7, 2017
– Shelved as:
to-read
March 7, 2017
– Shelved
March 13, 2017
–
Started Reading
March 13, 2017
–
0.0%
"Starting this today. I liked #1 (Truly) so hope this is as good. I see the release date for #3 (Completely) has been pushed back to Sep 2017 (from June)."
page
0
March 13, 2017
–
16.0%
"It's OK so far. Not sure about the very proper English H. He doesn't have the immediate charm of Ben from the first book. But I'm keeping an open mind :)"
March 14, 2017
–
43.0%
"I'm not loving this one as much as #1 (Truly) :-/ It's just a bit ordinary - not drawing me in like that first book did. And I'm finding the h, Allie, a bit painful. A bit too 'kooky'. What's with the Grecian 'toga'? That was a bit too much for me. But, I do intend to finish it."
March 14, 2017
– Shelved as:
contemporary
March 14, 2017
–
Finished Reading
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Leslie
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Mar 15, 2017 05:10PM
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