The Aussie Next Door by Stefanie LondonMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
DNF at 42%.
Angie Donovan left a life of unwanted notoriety in the US for a life of anonymity in small town Australia, but then she finds out she has to leave Australia unless she can fall in love and marry within a few short months.
Angie's next door neighbour is hunky cartoonist Jace. Unbeknownst to Angie, Jace has high functioning autism which means he struggles to understand other people's feelings or how to act in certain situations. He likes that Angie doesn't know about his autism, that she treats him like a regular guy. He likes Angie and wants her to stay but it takes him months to decide on a new brand of trainers, a decision like marriage would take him years.
Angie decides she will do everything she can to find someone, with the aim of falling in love and getting married before she gets deported.
The blurb for this read made me think it would be romantic comedy: a large interfering family; a series of dates; unruly dogs; and Jace sabotaging Angie's dates. To a certain extent I did get this but it all seemed pretty muted, nearly half way into the book and Angie has only been on one date. I also struggled with Jace's portrayal which made him seem a bit simple. There have been some great books released in the last few years which portray autism with empathy - in contrast this felt like Jace was a 16 year old child rather than a man.
Overall, I found the pace too slow, the characters overly sweet and the plot wasn't developing fast enough and I gave up.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.
View all my reviews
No comments:
Post a Comment