Review – And Then I Found You by Patti Callahan Henry (2.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Length: 272 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Release Date: April 9, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-0312610760
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought
Rating: 2.5/5 stars

I got this book kind of randomly last year from the publisher. This isn’t normally the type of book I read, but I decided to give it a try anyway.

Kate Vaughan has had to make a number of tough choices in her past and is having trouble making a commitment to her current boyfriend. Kate has some secrets and baggage from a relationship that she had in her teen’s/20’s that comes back to haunt her and is jeopardizing her current relationship.

This was an okay book. It’s one of those tear-jerker reads about finding out what is important in life and learning to love yourself.

The writing isn’t great, dialogue between characters sounds a bit awkward and doesn’t flow as well as it should. It’s a pretty short book and there isn’t a ton of description so I had some trouble picturing surroundings. That story was also incredibly predictable. Kate’s big secret is pretty apparent right from the beginning of the story.

The whole thing was fairly engaging, it’s a short read so I didn’t have trouble getting through it. However it was a bit too predictable and “lifetime movie” for me.

I honestly didn’t understand Katie all that well either. I think she made some very poor life decisions and was very whiny about it all. The book ends happy, but it’s not the ending I think any of these characters deserved. Things were just so happy happy that it seemed a bit unreal. The whole story seemed a bit too surfacey to me, even though it was trying to deal with some tough family issues.

Overall not my favorite contemporary fiction out there. This book was just missing some depth and some heart. The writing was a bit awkward and the characters were hard to like or engage with. It was also a very very predictable story. If you want to read some contemporary fiction with real heart check out some John Green books. If you want to read a wonderful story about a woman dealing with family and finding romance check out Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (this has some magic but is also a wonderful story about family and love).

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge