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A review by amandaalexandre
Afraid of Her Shadow by Carol Maloney Scott
3.0
2.5 stars
Most chick lits involve a girl in her early to mid-twenties in some adventure to find a new love. Bridget Jones was thirty something, at least, but there is not much adventure on paper out there for the older ladies. And that's the good thing about the "RomCom in the edge" series, by [a:Carol Maloney Scott|8423427|Carol Maloney Scott|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1406831337p2/8423427.jpg]. We get to read about older women. Women who were divorced, who had real life problems, and knows a thing or two about how that happily-ever-after form other stories is not so happy in the real world.
But that doesn't mean the series can't be escapist. There are tons of jokes (some of them too silly, some of them lost on foreigners, but some of them witty or hilarious) and we get to laugh and empathize with Rebecca, a middle aged woman who has to deal with the memory of her boyfriend's dead wife... While she is tempted by a hot Portuguese hunky ex-boyfriend.
The MC is very reasonable, what makes her character much more relatable than Claire from the first book (don't worry, you can read it as a standalone). Such a pity it didn't translate in a more enjoyable read: I found myself tired from memorizing the dozens of names at the first third of the book and some jokes were just too forced, like the conversation was put together just to display the joke.
Besides, it lost one star just for the stereotyping. There is a lot of "Italians are like this", "Rhode Islanders should be like that", men this, Catholic that, it was just too much for just a couple hundred of pages. Don't read it if you're usually put away by that. That and the stream of small little dramas that were realistic, but a little off-putting impeded me from enjoying this installment as a whole.
Most chick lits involve a girl in her early to mid-twenties in some adventure to find a new love. Bridget Jones was thirty something, at least, but there is not much adventure on paper out there for the older ladies. And that's the good thing about the "RomCom in the edge" series, by [a:Carol Maloney Scott|8423427|Carol Maloney Scott|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1406831337p2/8423427.jpg]. We get to read about older women. Women who were divorced, who had real life problems, and knows a thing or two about how that happily-ever-after form other stories is not so happy in the real world.
But that doesn't mean the series can't be escapist. There are tons of jokes (some of them too silly, some of them lost on foreigners, but some of them witty or hilarious) and we get to laugh and empathize with Rebecca, a middle aged woman who has to deal with the memory of her boyfriend's dead wife... While she is tempted by a hot Portuguese hunky ex-boyfriend.
The MC is very reasonable, what makes her character much more relatable than Claire from the first book (don't worry, you can read it as a standalone). Such a pity it didn't translate in a more enjoyable read: I found myself tired from memorizing the dozens of names at the first third of the book and some jokes were just too forced, like the conversation was put together just to display the joke.
Besides, it lost one star just for the stereotyping. There is a lot of "Italians are like this", "Rhode Islanders should be like that", men this, Catholic that, it was just too much for just a couple hundred of pages. Don't read it if you're usually put away by that. That and the stream of small little dramas that were realistic, but a little off-putting impeded me from enjoying this installment as a whole.