Well, I didn’t find out until the bio at the end that Barbara O’Neal writes “women’s fiction”. If I had, I might not have read this. If the description had referred to it as a “romance”, I would have thought of those awful paperbacks that many women devour like chocolate candies, but which I can’t get past one paragraph of. I’m a man, and I thoroughly enjoyed this novel from start to finish. I’m always interested in learning about the mysterious operations of the female mind, and this book, thoroughly feminine in approach and style, contributed to my learning.
Its greatest strengths are the explorations of life as never being black and white as much as our minds want to put everything into one or the other category, its use of switching POV back and forth between the two very different – and so much alike – sisters, its beautifully poetic and sense-involving descriptions. The sense of smell, so underused in fiction, is evoked and given the importance it deserves. The physical expression of emotions in the body is also well done. The surfing descriptions are , however, of the “you had to be there and have done this” nature. The story creates suspense and eagerness to go forward to find out how things are going to turn out.
The weaknesses are only two, and I have encountered both before in fiction by women: 1) Descriptions of events from long ago - an adult narrator recalling their childhood and early teen years - described in intimate, specific detail as if they had just occurred moments ago. Describing an event from 20 years ago and referring to the slight movement of a shadow on someone’s face, or a drop of dew on a grass blade, or the movement of the sun behind a wispy cloud, and the exact clothes the people were wearing... I suppose some of that would be recallable if it were directly related to the event being described, like how many buttons it took to get off their shirt, but most is just tiny physical, environmental details that would not likely be remembered after so long. While they are nice to read, it is a flaw in believability.
Slight SPOILER, you may want to skip this paragraph: The second weakness is a certain predictability about the main character and in this type of novel. She is so strongly bent in one direction that there’s no surprise in where she’s going to go. None at all. Along with that, while, thank God, not all women’s fiction involves romance, the ones that do can only have one ending.
I haven’t written a book review in a long time, though I have been reading voraciously. This was excellent enough to talk about, and to let men know it isn’t only just for women. That said, if you’re looking for espionage thrillers, you wouldn’t be reading a review of a book called “When We Believed In Mermaids” anyway. Original, beautifully written and highly recommended.
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From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover comes a novel that explores life after tragedy and the enduring spirit of love. | Learn more
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Popular Highlights in this book
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.”Highlighted by 4,503 Kindle readers- “Your quest is powerful. You needn’t apologize for the space it takes.”Highlighted by 4,423 Kindle readers
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Reviews with images
Good story
3 stars.What a story!! So Josie has been dead for 15 years and then one day Kit (her sister) sees an identical woman on TV in New Zealand!! So now she is on the hunt. Crazy right?!?!Ok so I want to say I think I am in the minority with this rating because I have got nothing but good reviews from people about this book. I will also say I didn’t hate the book. I did love the story. I just couldn’t take the pace of this book. I was also not really invested in many of the characters. Dylan’s story and Victoria’s story seemed much more believable. Sadly the Sapphire house story conclusion kind of just blew up at the end. I wanted more from that.Now on to the good stuff. The girls past life was rough and the story was heart breaking and heart warming. I think hearing about the earthquake a million times became a little redundant but it hurt all the same. Josie was a mess. Dylan was a mess. The girls parents were a mess. It was quite sad actually.The author was able to paint a picture of everything very clearly. Her words were perfect. There were some beautiful love stories here and some crazy heart wrenching back stories. To find out the “why’s” to all the things that happened in this book was gut wrenching. The end was beautiful!!
Top reviews from other countries
Carolita
Foreign locals, interesting characters, riveting story of a family torn apart.
Reviewed in Canada on February 25, 2024Enrique Lopez
Esta es una buena novela para descansar, leyendo y pasando un buen rato.
Reviewed in Mexico on April 23, 2021
