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The Truth About Riley (2013)

by Henrietta Clarke(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Bottom Drawer Publications

review 1: It was good at the beginning. At around page 70, it was starting to get old when I realised there was 200+ pages left. At page 125, I wondered if I really wanted to go through all the rest. Sure, the phone conversations are supposed to show you how they develop their relationship, but it was easy to see from early on that they are sweet and awesome with each other; having it played out page after page after page got tedious. I skimmed, or just plain skipped through pages of conversation which I wasn't interested in and didn't even feel like I missed out on anything. The ending seemed perfect. -Then- I get told that there's going to be -more- in a sequel. O_o No. I'm not even sure why there would be a need for a sequel. But that could just be me since it seems a lot of peop... morele love this book. It was too much of the same thing for me to enjoy. To know that the book is of such a length and still warrants a sequel? Definitely too much for me.
review 2: This story has a great concept, but Riley requires some serious patience, from Cameron and the reader. Both are rewarded, but it feels like a close thing. The idea that two people might fall in love without ever seeing one another isn’t new, and it’s trotted out nicely and shown well here. Where the story tested the absolute bounds of my patience was in the insistence of Riley and the author to draw things out for as long as possible. Cam is a really, really nice guy, but by the end, he felt a bit ridiculously nice. I actually started to lose respect for him. Riley—he’s nice, too, but ultimately too self-absorbed. Understandable, given what happened to his face, but also baffling, given the support of his friends and family. While the telephone conversations migrated to creative settings, little could detract from the sometimes endless monologues filled with pop culture references that will leave you out in the cold if you don’t get them. The large swathes of italics were difficult to read, and with the POV not always changing reliably and the italics sometimes being used for the wrong character, I often had to check back to see whose head we were in. That’s distracting. In short, there was just too much conversation and not enough action. I wanted interaction, not just the discussion of it. I ended up skimming the conversation when presented with blocks of dialogue that were paragraph length, italics or not. And, ironically, the two conversations I would have been most interested in reading were not shown: the deep and meaningful until dawn and Cam’s evening with Riley’s mother. My conclusion is that this would have made a much better novella. The same dynamic could have been shown and even the same time frame explored—with less tedium. The author plans to continue the story. Now that they’ve actually met, Riley and Cam have to learn to be together, properly. To be honest…that’s the missing half of this book, the part I really want to read.Still, I did read this to the end. I was hooked by the premise and there were several excruciatingly poignant moments. It is a love story, and succeeds well in that.(3.5 rounded up to 4) less

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