Official Review: Someone To Watch Over Me by Fran Connor
Posted: 31 Oct 2016, 15:34
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Someone To Watch Over Me" by Fran Connor.]
4 out of 4 stars
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Someone to Watch Over Me by Fran Connor is labelled as a Romantic Thriller, but it is so much more than that. It is a story of love, loss, hope and betrayal. The year is 1936 and Alicia Carter is ready for the world. She is done school now and can’t wait to experience life as a modern woman in Spain. Everything changes in a heartbeat though when Alicia shoots would-be-rapist Jose coming home from the bar one night. Knowing that Jose’s father, Colonel Lopez, is the corrupt Police Chief from back home, Alicia decides to dump the body and run rather than go to the police.
Alicia decides to hide out in the Sierra Nevada with her boyfriend Alphonse, a piano player she met at the bar one night. But the Spanish Civil War looms, and soon the perfect world they have created is blasted apart and they find themselves struggling to survive in Madrid. This book follows Alicia as she finds her way through one of the most tragic decades of the 20th century.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about this novel was the presence of such a strong female lead. Alicia does not need anybody to watch over her; she does that perfectly well on her own. She is strong-willed to a fault, and will protect anybody she thinks is in need of it. She is human though, and she makes mistakes along the way. This makes her so much more relatable, and I found myself rooting for her every step of the way.
I found some of the romantic relationships throughout the novel to be a little bit unrealistic. There were several love-at-first-sight relationships that turned very serious within hours of the people meeting each other. While I find it to be rather unrealistic, I understand that people can often have a “now or never” attitude during times of war. Regardless, I did not find that it distracted from my enjoyment of the plot.
The character development throughout this book is incredibly well written. Alicia, for example, starts out as a young woman who just wants to have a good time. But war and violence have a way of changing people, and Alicia finds herself becoming more and more capable of doing whatever needs to be done, no matter how unpleasant, as the story moves along. What I enjoyed the most about the writing is that the characters do not develop in a choppy, unexplained way, but rather in a gradual procession with defined markers to account for changes in behaviour.
Overall, I am happy to award Someone to Watch Over Me 4 out of 4 stars. It is an action packed story so full of twists and turns you won’t want to put it down. I did not find any mistakes within the writing. Due to some rather graphic scenes, I would not recommend this novel for any younger readers. However, anyone with any appreciation for history, or just enjoy reading books about overcoming the odds, will enjoy this book.
******
Someone To Watch Over Me
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4 out of 4 stars
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Someone to Watch Over Me by Fran Connor is labelled as a Romantic Thriller, but it is so much more than that. It is a story of love, loss, hope and betrayal. The year is 1936 and Alicia Carter is ready for the world. She is done school now and can’t wait to experience life as a modern woman in Spain. Everything changes in a heartbeat though when Alicia shoots would-be-rapist Jose coming home from the bar one night. Knowing that Jose’s father, Colonel Lopez, is the corrupt Police Chief from back home, Alicia decides to dump the body and run rather than go to the police.
Alicia decides to hide out in the Sierra Nevada with her boyfriend Alphonse, a piano player she met at the bar one night. But the Spanish Civil War looms, and soon the perfect world they have created is blasted apart and they find themselves struggling to survive in Madrid. This book follows Alicia as she finds her way through one of the most tragic decades of the 20th century.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about this novel was the presence of such a strong female lead. Alicia does not need anybody to watch over her; she does that perfectly well on her own. She is strong-willed to a fault, and will protect anybody she thinks is in need of it. She is human though, and she makes mistakes along the way. This makes her so much more relatable, and I found myself rooting for her every step of the way.
I found some of the romantic relationships throughout the novel to be a little bit unrealistic. There were several love-at-first-sight relationships that turned very serious within hours of the people meeting each other. While I find it to be rather unrealistic, I understand that people can often have a “now or never” attitude during times of war. Regardless, I did not find that it distracted from my enjoyment of the plot.
The character development throughout this book is incredibly well written. Alicia, for example, starts out as a young woman who just wants to have a good time. But war and violence have a way of changing people, and Alicia finds herself becoming more and more capable of doing whatever needs to be done, no matter how unpleasant, as the story moves along. What I enjoyed the most about the writing is that the characters do not develop in a choppy, unexplained way, but rather in a gradual procession with defined markers to account for changes in behaviour.
Overall, I am happy to award Someone to Watch Over Me 4 out of 4 stars. It is an action packed story so full of twists and turns you won’t want to put it down. I did not find any mistakes within the writing. Due to some rather graphic scenes, I would not recommend this novel for any younger readers. However, anyone with any appreciation for history, or just enjoy reading books about overcoming the odds, will enjoy this book.
******
Someone To Watch Over Me
View: on Bookshelves
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