His Hometown Girl

Rating:
Summary: OK, I guess.
Review: Zzzzzzzzzzz ::blink blink:: Wha..? Huh? Where am I? Oh! Oh, sorry about that, I was taking a little snooze. Reading "His Hometown Girl" made me nod off more than once.

I don't want to seem too unkind -- this was a "nice" book with a "nice" plot and "nice" people. Your 12 year old kid or your sheltered grandma could read it and never blush. That's got to be worth something, right?

And it had the seeds of a good story. The characters were likeable. The hero was a nice guy, how could you not like him? The heroine -- well, maybe she was a little dull, but still, she was a nice person, as was her grandma, and her sisters, and her horsey...

The problems with this book were:

Too long. I was ready to scream from boredom at 180 pages. Since it went on for about 240 pages this was a problem. It really should have been about 150 pages, tops. I am assuming the publisher requires all books from this line to be a certain length, so the author just padded the story until it was long enough.

Not enough drama or conflict. The dramatic elements were all there, too. The girl feels that she will never get more than a "lukewarm" love. She's got a depressed mom. There are close-minded townsfolk. There's a frowning and disapproving woman who was supposed to be the girl's future mother-in-law. The hero had plenty of his own drama as well -- his "from the wrong side of the tracks" background, his drunken mom, the judgment he perceives from the town because of his humble and sometimes embarassing roots. It's all there -- all the conflict and drama. But so much of it is barely allowed to be explored. Sure, there is some conflict in the last 30 pages or so, but that wasn't nearly enough drama to compensate for the tedium and boredom that came before.

Too much filler dialog. We read pages and pages of "sweet" and "cute" dialog between the hero and heroine. Sure, a certain amount of this dialog was fine, and it was (to a certain extent) written with finesse. But enough! Give us some drama! Some conflict! Some in-depth exploration of the characters! Come on!

I know this is from Harlequin's "Inspirational" line of romances. But such books with a more "old fashioned" and "traditonal values" feel to them don't have to be so unexciting, you know.