Book Review #89: The Summer Job by Lizzy Dent

 

This was another Carrie Hope Fletcher recommendation. I bought it back in March but only finished it recently, for reasons that I'll get into in the review.

Birdy Finch is jobless, on the verge of homelessness, and doesn't have much going on. So when her best friend, and wine expert, Heather turns down a job as a sommelier at a luxury Scottish hotel, Birdy decides to go in Heather's place. Can Birdy keep this new job, and stop herself from falling for chef James, while pretending to be someone else?

This book was fine, but I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Which was a shame because I really liked the premise.

I actually ended up taking a really long break from this book. I read the first half, didn't love it, and wasn't that interested in where it would go. I put it down and didn't plan to finish it, but after re-reading some of my childhood favourites, and not being quite ready to jump back into my reading list, I decided to finish it, and I'm glad I did.

I found some sections of the story quite bland. There was a lot of description and some scenes that felt unnecessary. They ground the story to a halt rather than moving it forwards.

I loved the character of Birdy. She was interesting and funny, and it's nice to read about her. It's clear that the author really knows this character, and has thought her out well. If anything, I would have liked to see more of her background, because a lot of this is just hinted at until later in the novel.

Having said that, I didn't really care about any of the characters apart from Birdy, particularly those that she worked with. I didn't feel that I learned much about them. 

The book wasn't particularly memorable for me. I could put it down at any point and there was nothing enticing me to pick it back up, other than moving on to my next book. The story wasn't that interesting, and the stakes never seemed that high. I was never truly invested, and I never thought that the story would end in an unexpected way, which it didn't.

I liked the relationship between Birdy and James when anything actually happened, but I quickly got bored of their to-ing and fro-ing, the 'will they, won't they' of it all. 

The last 100 pages of the book were the best, and they were the parts that I enjoyed reading the most.

It is clear that the author really understands the world that she's created. She really understands the restaurant world, the wine world and the cooking world. This adds to the authenticity of the story. At no point did I question the events that occurred.

What was good?

This is an enjoyable predictable story where what you see is what you get. If it's your kind of thing, then you'll really enjoy it. Dent knows the genre she's writing, and she knows the characters that she's created. It is also written really well.

What was bad?

I follow Lizzy Dent on twitter, and saw her mention that this book isn't really a romance, and while I agree, I think my problem lay in the fact that I couldn't work out what it was. It wasn't a romance, it wasn't funny enough to be a comedy, it wasn't dramatic enough to be a drama, it wasn't particularly empowering or informative, so I struggled to work it out. And because of that, I also struggle to pinpoint what it is about it that I didn't like. Is it the story itself, or is this a genre that I'm not a fan of?

Overall

I'm not a huge fan of this story, and I can't imagine re-reading it. I understand why some love it, I get why it was written, and again it was written really well. It is not a bad book by any means, it just isn't for me.

2/5 stars