A review by allisonrandom
Adelaide by Genevieve Wheeler

2.25

This book was a slog for me. It reads like a thinly veiled memoir but lacks the introspection I wanted and expected from a book like this. Despite dealing with heavy topics, it felt very surface level and unwilling to dig deep. It's sort of like a memoir smushed together with a romance novel, where everyone lives happily ever after despite the bulk of the novel spending its time on the protagonist getting treated like garbage and somehow not realizing it. I was begging for Rory and Adelaide to break up the whole time. There was nothing compelling about them as a couple. I was told a lot by the book that they were soulmates but never shown anything to prove that. All of the characters were incredibly flat and I had a hard time keeping track of the side characters because they all blended together. The characters were both underdeveloped and filled with unnecessary detail. The book begins with a disclaimer that it's based on the author's life experiences and that is evident from some of the strange choices of what's included here. Details and anecdotes that would make sense in a memoir are totally unnecessary in a novel, and there are so many pieces here that really don't fit together narratively. The happily ever after felt out of place and un-earned because the resolution was so glossed over.
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