2 out of 4 stars
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Teresa M. Vadney is a single middle age attorney who works for a highly demanding law firm that won’t even let her take a vacation to Italy that she planned for weeks in advance (which is also her best friend’s wedding). She realizes that she is tired of sacrificing her life for work so she chooses Italy, adopts a dog and hop on a plane with her mother to Italy for the wedding. Along the way, she experiences the beautiful country of Italy and its citizens, meet and fall in love with two guys and discovers and learns to conquer her fears concerning her future.
When I first read the title, Wrong Turn, Right Guy by Haylie B. Fox, I was excited. After all, I’m a romance novel connoisseur (I assumed it was a romance novel because of the title). When I started reading the chapters, I didn’t understand what it was anymore. The beginning of the novel, failed to capture my interest as it starts with a flash back that I now look back on and think, “What was the point of that?” In fact, majority of the novel had me questioning what was the point of a lot of events that took place. I noticed that for a romance novel, it took a LONG time to get to the romance. The author bombards the readers with mundane subjects and the plot drags on with uninteresting and pointless events. Here’s an example, chapter 2 was all about Teresa finding a dog and naming it after a former teacher…. that’s it. The dog doesn’t have any relevance in the story and yet has a whole chapter dedicated to him.
She finally makes it to Italy after a few un-noteworthy chapters and I become excited again. After reading detail after detail about her everyday life, I was finally going to be introduced to the male lead… except… that didn’t happen for a few more chapters. Instead, I read chapters of her adventures in Italy with her mother. I began to note that this isn’t a romance novel…but a journal the main character is writing in, telling the reader every single detail about her life from how many times she uses the bathroom from drinking too much coffee to how many times her naive mother could have put them in dangerous situations.
Grammatically, this story is an easy read but plot wise, it’s a hard one to get through especially if like me, you assume it’s a romance novel. As mentioned earlier, the author struggles with the plot and in order to make it novel length, she puts in too many unnecessary details and chapters that really should have been taken out from the main story. It takes way too long in the plot for Teresa to meet a romantic male lead. When she finally does, the author fails to make him interesting, make the romance interesting and in general, there is absolutely no spark between them. There’s hardly any dialogue between the two. The main character spoke more to her mother while traveling all around Italy than she did the male lead! It made me feel that the title of the story should have been, “My Mother, Me and the Beautiful Italy.” The story becomes even more complicated and confusing for the reader when a second love interest reveals himself more than halfway through the book. The men in the story aren’t treated as fleshed out individuals in Teresa’s life. They are treated as props, more filler material who have no true relevancy in the story. As for the main character, Teresa, herself, it’s hard to find her likable because of her constant complaining and whininess throughout the story. Don’t get me wrong, she’s relatable (After all, don’t we all complain and become whiny) but she is also incredibly unlikable.
If I had to give a positive, it would be that I admire a character who realizes that a change needs to be made in her life and then goes out to change it. The author did well in writing of Teresa’s journey of self-discovery. The problem is, if this is the main point of the story, then the title is incredibly misleading and it will leave many readers incredibly disappointed. I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars and the two stars are simply because of the one positive that I gave. If I had to recommend this book, I would recommend it to an adult female audience who just like Teresa, feel like they need to make a change in their life and can maybe relate to her. I would tell all the romance novel lovers to stay away. As I learned the hard way, never assume you know a book just because of its title. Titles can be misleading.
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Wrong Turn, Right Guy
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