That Loving Feeling by Carole Matthews
Blurb on the Back:
Ever wondered what you’d do if your relationship lost its spark?
Juliet Joyce has been happily married for twenty-five years. But with two children who treat the house like a hotel, a mother who’s just moved in and a father who’s announced he’s gay, Juliet and her husband Rick have little time for romance.
Enter Steven Aubrey – last seen twenty-six years ago, when he jilted Juliet on their wedding day. He ignites a passion in her that she though was long gone. But will Steven sweep her off her feet or can Rick rekindled that loving feeling they’ve lost? There’s only one way to find out…
My Thoughts:
Very, VERY, rarely do I find myself hating every character in a book. I think we found a winner here though. Actually that’s a lie, there are one or two characters that aren’t really significant that I don’t mind, but the majority of the characters I hate.
Some are hated because I feel like they were written with the intention of being disliked, but the others are just hated because I personally think they are idiots.
This is a story of a middle aged couple who are essentially going through a crisis of being bored with their relationship which has fallen into a stale sort of comfort zone. It’s a story which I am certain plays out on a regular basis in reality simply because relationships can have their rollercoaster type moments. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I didn’t really connect with the characters as it was very hard to understand where they were coming from. I’m not middle aged and I haven’t been married for 20+ years; it’s hard to sympathise (empathise?) with a character when you can’t really feel what they feel in a situation. That being said, I don’t doubt that I’ve reached a point in past relationships where I’ve felt something along those same lines of stale-comfort-zone.
I liked the story but I didn’t love it and that isn’t a criticism of the writer or the writing style; even the content would be ok, I suppose. My problem is that I have a strong dislike for these types of stories; Happily Ever After by Benison Anne O’Reilly was very similar in content and I hated that simply because you find yourself wanting to scream at the characters because you can see where they are going wrong and want them to know they are making the wrong choices. I guess that’s life really; if I had someone looking in on my life they’d probably have given themselves and aneurism for yelling at me so much.
Did I like the book? I felt it was unnecessarily long and draining but still somewhat enjoyable. I didn’t like the characters even though they had their own little quirks and they were interesting (I just hate them as “people”) but just for once, if I pick up one of these types of books, I want the characters to say “ok, my life sucks, but I’m going to do something to fix it right now instead of looking for a way out; if I’ve tried every possible thing to fix it and nothing works, then we’ll figure out a plan B AND I’ll be honest about it”. But that would hardly making for an interesting story right?
Rating: 2/5 Stars
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