★★★☆☆ The Do-Over, by Lynn Painter
For people who like this kind of book, this is the kind of book they like.
The Do-Over
Lynn Painter
For people who like this kind of book, this is the kind of book they like.
Disclaimer: The Do-Over is a high-school romance novel. My personal ideal storybook romance is closer to Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket than anything that ever appeared in a John Hughes film. So The Do-Over was always going to be a hard sell for me.
That said, what does Lynn Painter have to offer us in place of Mako and Raleigh fighting each other with sticks? Well, we have moments like this,
I’d always thought winking was cheesy until that day. Uri’s winks made me warm and melty.
If that makes you squeal with glee, then The Do-Over is the book for you. (By the way, there is no character in the book named Uri. I'm using that name -- Unnamed Romantic Interest for Emilie's potential romantic partners in this review to avoid spoiling.) The book is full of moments in which Emilie Hornby, our heroine and first-person narrator, has Feelings as a result of her interactions with the Uris. If hot-guy-wink-induced deliquescence is what floats your boat, then you will like this book.
I personally am more partial to the Jane Austen model, in which a heroine experiences hot-guy-induced physical symptoms at most two or three times in a novel. The Do-Over feels to me more like Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, in which Emily -- same name, even -- responds to every single thing that happens by swooning.
In my first version of this review, I had four paragraphs of things I didn't like about the book. But after realizing that so much piling on was the opposite of helpful, I will reduce it to this one point: The Do-Over is entirely predictable. It never surprises.
But, this is a book that does what it is supposed to do -- narrates hot-guy-induced Feelings. Three stars for that.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for an advance reviewer's copy in exchange for a candid review.