book
bookblog
bookreview
books
review
springclean
springtbr
tbr
Review: Here's Looking At You
18:00
Author: Mhairi McFarlane
Source: Amazon Kindle
Published: 2013
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Our heroine Aureliana returns to school after fifteen years for a reunion. School doesn't hold happy memories for her, as being a roly poly Italian (known as the Italian Galleon), she was bullied incessantly throughout her years there. Now in her 30s, Aureliana wants to put the past behind her once and for all and face up to the bullies who made her life hell. But she is much-changed from the girl she once was - all curves and because I'm worth it hair - and no one recognises her when she arrives. Losing her bottle, she backs out on her plan for revenge and slinks off, hoping never to be reminded of her years at school again. But fate gets in the way, and after the reunion her path keeps crossing with James - major hunk and Aureliana's major crush back at school. But alas, as a cronie to the bullies, Aureliana to this day believes that his beautiful exterior hides an ugly interior. As they continue to cross paths a love/hate relationship ensues until eventually something shifts, and they both start to discover what the person underneath is really like.
I read Mhairi McFarlane's first book 'You Had Me At Hello' last year (I believe) and absolutely adored it, so as soon as I saw that her second companion novel was being released on kindle, and for very cheap, I had to grab it as soon as possible - even though it's taken me a little while to getting around to reading it.
The story is told from Aureliana (Anna) Alessi and James Fraser's perspective, and is ever so casual in the writing style that it just draws you in immediately. The use of popular culture references and slang definitely help with this and make you relate to the story. The plot itself was absolutely lovely to read, but it was extremely predictable; it was a stereotype in itself in an ugly-duckling-becomes-a-swan sort of way. It wasn't quite as predictable as some movies with the best-friend-takes-off-their-glasses-pulls-down-their-hair-and-suddenly-they-are-beautiful, as it was a lot more hard work than that, but it was teetering on the edge.
Anna wasn't a character I particularly liked to be honest. She was insecure about her looks, yes, because of her past, but there comes a point when it just becomes tedious when someone is so modest and doesn't appreciate themselves all the time. In a way, it almost becomes an attention play (which I don't think was intentional) and starts to be quite annoying. The way she was just so oblivious and naive to any kind of sign or fact that she might be attractive started to get on my nerves as the book went on. James' character on the other hand was absolutely fantastic and I grew to like him more and more as his character developed throughout the book; he learned from his mistakes.
I absolutely LOVED the banter between the characters, it was just me all over. The witty sarcastic comments were just wonderful and I found myself laughing out loud on many an occasion - and for someone that doesn't really react to books that's a pretty mean feat. Even in the first book I found the dialogue to be second to none and it definitely didn't disappoint in this book.
Here's Looking At You was a lovely story but was just a tad too predictable for my likings. However, I'm still keen to read more by Mhairi McFarlane as she has wonderful writing skills and I want to see what else she can come up with.
0 comments