Hello to All my Followers and Potential Followers,

I’m back home, and getting into the routine of things. While I was away, I thought about new postings on my blog, and I’ve decided to add reviews about anything I’ve dealt with, such as books, writing, life, publishing, etc. Reviews are helpful in making decisions, so I thought posting them here would help.

This post is dedicated to a book review. Over the summer break, I was only able to read one book, Reinventing Claire by Darian Wilk. I’ll admit that I don’t read a lot of chick lit or free eBooks, which is why I had this book downloaded, but I decided to read it since I’m currently writing a women’s fiction/chick lit book and I liked the cover.

Summary:

Reinventing Claire is about a woman who thinks her marriage is forever until her husband, Charlie, decides forever is too long. He leaves her in a cold fashion and remarries her friend as she struggles to figure out what went wrong and how to live life without Charlie. She turns to her sisters, Holly and Samantha, to help her cope with the turn of events, and then she meets up with a man, Mac, who makes her realize that love does exist after divorce. Now she has a choice to make. Does she go back to Charlie, who pursues her and wants her back, or stay with the man she recently fell in love with, and who treats her well?

Review:

I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. Before my writing days, I would have given this book a 2, but because I know how much time is put into writing a novel, it gets that extra star.

This book starts off strong. Claire breaks her shoe, loses her job and then her husband asks for a divorce at a restaurant, leaving her crying at the table. In the beginning, the character Claire is funny, but then things start to get repetitious. She is always turning to her sisters for support, which is great, but it seems they are there after she calls, as if they don’t have lives of their own. Claire is annoyingly needy. I thought she was a pushover and unintelligent. Maybe it’s because I like my characters to have some dignity, which doesn’t describe Claire. Another repetition that drove me crazy was that everyone was ‘smirking’. I think that word was on every page.

As I continued to read, I was waiting for Claire to reinvent herself. Instead, she continuously cried to her sisters about Charlie even when a wonderful man, Mac, enters her life. She doesn’t give Mac the respect he deserves, and he allows her to hurt him time and again, which is surprising since he is divorced, too. You would think Mac would be on-guard instead of letting Claire walk all over him while she tries to figure out whether she wants him or Charlie. That’s just a slap in the face.

Darian Wilk has her main character, Claire, rely too much on her sisters instead of bringing the book to a new level and making it about ‘Reinventing Claire’. I wanted to read about Claire’s life without Charlie, such as her job, which is mentioned but not discussed; feelings about children (whether she wants them or not. She was married for a long time to Charlie and they didn’t have children); dealing with Mac’s son’s mother; and her new home. Darian Wilk left out the reinventing part. Majority of the book is about Claire and her sisters, Claire thinking about Charlie, and her confusion about which man she wants. By the end of the book, Claire still doesn’t feel like her new home is home; there isn’t anything mentioned about children even though her new love has a son, and it takes her close to the end of the book to realize she doesn’t want Charlie. If she was reinventing herself, the book would be more about her new life, feelings about home, job, children and some definite anger toward Charlie and how he treated her. How did she get a job working from home? Does she want children, or can she have them? Where is the anger toward the way Charlie treated her in the marriage, when he left her, and his divorce demands? Very little growth is shown.

Along with characters I didn’t like or relate to, I found the dialogue annoying. When writing dialogue, you don’t always have to write, ‘he said’ or ‘she said’, especially when there are only two characters in the scene. Darian Wilk continuously wrote ‘she said/he said’, which were like speed bumps to me. Give the reader some credit. It’s all right to guide the reader at first as to who is talking, but when all dialogue tells you who is speaking, it becomes monotonous.

If you’re looking for a predictable, light romantic chick lit book, then you might enjoy Reinventing Claire by Darian Wilk. In two clicks, you can buy it on Amazon.

Chick Lit and Reinvention,

Bea

I had a Dream

…that the world was at peace—even if it was for a short time. The world breathed easier and it released some tortured souls of blame...provided closure for others. Even though it still existed, we felt a unity knowing evil can be defeated. A unity in knowing that violence swirls around the world—sometimes behind a mask of religion. But in this dream, we smiled at an encouraging future…hope massaged our hearts.

…that our journey back to the U.S. was completed by finding work. The worry of separation didn’t exist, and we began building and saving for our future. We savored our luck, thanked the Lord for our blessings, and vowed to never separate again. In this dream, we found a home, married, and over the years, watched our bodies decline. But in this dream, our spirit remained mesmerized with all the things we learned about each other.

…that I published my novel and it was a success. The days of repeated revisions for my book to grow stronger were worth it. My plot and characters satisfied even the worst critics. I found an inner peace from believing in myself…an understanding that I DO have writing strengths. Through the years, I continued to write poetry, short stories and a few more novels…some for me…some for you. But in this dream, I not only wrote a bestseller, I lived it too.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

I finally did it. I completed my first full revision yesterday and it feels great. It’s like returning to your favorite tavern—realizing how much you missed and enjoyed it. When I first wrote this novel, it was without a thought to fix, promote or possibly publish it. The discipline to write without worrying about editing is what drove the story. I can honestly say it wrote itself. Sometimes I felt like my fingers struggled to keep up with the intertwining characters and plot as I pounded away at the keys trying to make that 30 day deadline of 50,000 words. That was the main goal.

Now after sitting down with my novel again, reintroducing myself to the characters and experiencing the story after a lapse of time, it made me realize the dream could become reality. At times, I even reread lines asking myself, “Did I really write that?”! And then there were sentences I read and asked myself, “Were you drinking when you wrote that?” Overall, I’m proud of the characters and story I created, which isn’t something I normally say when it comes to my writing. I’m critical of the words I link together, along with being critical of other writers. Not so critical of the grammatical errors as I am of the character and plot—texture and flavor of a story.

But I arrived to the point in my novel where I sighed with satisfaction—an unplanned journey that I hope in time many will read—where everybody knows my name.