Review by StaceyRinn -- Wrong Turn, Right Guy

[StaceyRinn]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Wrong Turn, Right Guy" by Haylie B. Fox.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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Teresa (Tessa) Vadney is on the fast track to making partner in her law firm. She has given up her personal life (read love life) for the last twelve years to focus on her career goals. Just as she is on the cusp of getting everything she has worked for, it is gone in the blink of an eye. Well, more like in the space of one verbal outburst during a staff meeting, but regardless, now she’s unemployed and about to embark on a trip to Italy with her mom (remember, no love life) for her best friend’s wedding. Tessa’s journey may make up twelve missing years of life experiences and lead to what could be the most important decision of her life.

Wrong Turn, Right Guy, by Haylie B. Fox, is a relatively quick romantic read. I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars. Tessa has a lot of adventures and travels to many locations in Italy, but I felt like there was too much telling of the story and not enough showing. The first two-thirds of the book is very light on the character having any in depth conversations with others.

I felt that the main themes of this book are Tessa’s fear of failure with a bit of identity crisis thrown in. Tessa quits her job without having any idea what she wants to do with her life. She lives in fear of what others think of her losing her job and not immediately having another one. This, in turn, throws her into a bit of an identity crisis. She was a lawyer for twelve years and that became her defining identity. She does not know how to pivot into being something or someone else.

I thought the premise of this book was strong, but that the execution of it just did not work for me. The author had many threads of story elements running throughout, and I felt like I wanted her to explore some of them more deeply, but they abruptly ended. For example, when Tessa is unhappy because she is not working, she tries to apply to American companies in Italy. This could have been a nice thread to follow as she is trying to re-establish some of her identity by looking for meaningful work. The author could have used this scenario to further explore why Tessa needs work to in order to feel fulfilled, but it was delivered in a few lines that said, “I had applied for a few positions with some American companies, but they told me I was overqualified and that put a damper on my enthusiasm to continue job hunting…” There were several similar instances like this that could have pivoted into more in depth understanding of Tessa’s personality, but they ultimately just became superficial reasons why she did or did not do something.

I think ultimately why I gave this book 2 out of 4 stars is because I felt like Tessa never resolved her identity crisis. She had several people point out to her what they felt she was not seeing in herself, but it did not feel to me that she ever reached the same conclusion. The ending felt like she made a decision not based on enlightenment but based on no other good possibilities. That is not to say I did not like the ending, I just did not feel like Tessa’s journey logically took me there. I felt like she needed more self-discovery to get there.

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Wrong Turn, Right Guy
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