Meet Me in Barcelona: Book Review

 

• Author: Mary Carter   
• First Published: 2014
• Genre: Mystery   
• Rating: ★

Have you ever locked eyes with a book on a sale table at your local bookstore and thought to yourself "Wow, I can't wait to dive into you, I bet you're fantastic!" then been utterly disappointed? Same. That's what this book did to me. 

It's been a couple of weeks since I've given up on this book, and I honestly wasn't even going to post about this but the folks over on Goodreads - hello! - let it be known that they actually want to hear about the books I've not finished, so here we go. I'm going to attempt to do this as spoiler-free as possible.

Did this have romance? Yes.

Did it have mystery? Yes.

Did it have travel? Yes.

Did it have infuriating communication problems that literally could have resolved so many of the issues in a single conversation? Yes.

Did our protagonist make me want to smash my face off of a wall because of how hypocritical, contrarian, and outright toxic they were? Absolutely. 

Did I give up on this novel because after 160 pages nothing of true substance happened and I could feel my life slowly leaving my body? You bet your sweet tarts I did.

This novel held so much promise. I'm a sucker for what I lovingly call hot garbage and others have called brain junk food, and I was honestly hoping that this was all that with the cherry on top. Give me the travel to a foreign destination that I've never been to but that I'd love to visit. Give me the hot romance and sexy scenes that go with vacationing. Give me the mystery and allure of estranged family and a dark, secret past that they have to revisit. I'll suck it all down with a curly straw. This had elements of that but, quite honestly, I didn't care.

I chalk most of this up to the author's writing style, and the editor sleeping on the job a bit. I understand that there is a certain amount of suspense that needs to be built, it comes with the territory, but I promise you that, of what I read, a good 30-40% of it could have been cut out and the readers would have missed nothing. Of that 30-40%, a good portion of it would have been all of the grammar and spelling mistakes that somehow made their way into the book. Now, I'm not one to knock too hard on the grammar tree because in no language is my grammar even remotely perfect, but I can tell the difference between the editor doing a bang up job and one who maybe had one too many glasses of wine at dinner. This book fell into the latter category. 

In addition, the charactera and their development, if that's what we're to call it, was awful. Our protagonist, Grace Ann, was nothing but annoying with her fluctuating moods and anxieties, as well as her propensity for diving head first into the toxic swill spoon-fed to her even though she does nothing but complain and go on about how awful it always has been. We get it, it adds to the drama and suspense, move on. Our antagonist, at least I assume that's what she is because if she isn't then it took way too long to get there, Carrie Ann, was negligible. Sure, we had little snippets from her point-of-view and were able to enter her psyche some, but it was so fleeting and boring that it's unmemorable. Don't even get me started on poor Grace Ann's boyfriend who is doing nothing but trying to make this the best vacation he can given what is going on in Grace's life and the information he's been given, which, spoiler, is next to nothing. 

All-in-all, I've read reviews from those who have loved this book and I just don't understand how. Like I've mentioned, I had high hopes for this book; I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't bring myself to continue any longer. Maybe if it was more concise it would have stood a better chance. 

What do you think? Am I being too harsh on this book? Have you encountered these problems in other books? 

Cheers!