A single girl in her 30's searching for her Mr. Right? When I heard about Searching for Sarah, I thought it was certainly a book I could identify with!
Come meet Sarah and begin her journey....
Sarah Keller is convinced that her Mr. Right is stuck in traffic…in another country…on another planet. ‘Thirty-one and still single’ isn’t how she wants to be introduced by her dad. That’s why she’s on five dating websites, posing as anything from an avid gardener to a crazed thrill seeker.
Sam Turner is a single dad, workaholic, who owns his own company. Long-term relationships have never worked out for him. That’s why he needs a nanny.
When a mutual friend suggests Sarah take the job temporarily, everything changes for them both. Sarah begins falling for the man who meets almost none of her online criteria. And when strange things start happening—things that jeopardize the safety of Sarah, Sam is the last person she would imagine is hiding something.
Searching for Sarah is a bit of an enigma. It's an incredibly engaging, quick read, and I found myself swept into Sarah's story. In fact, after a couple chapters, I was so engaged in the book that I read the rest of it in one sitting. (I would say there's an above average number of typos and instances of awkward wording, though, and they did detract from the story.)
In spite of the engaging nature of the book, I struggled to get behind Sarah as a main character. She is 32-years-old, but she acts more like she's 22. She dates a string of losers, and when she meets Sam, a man with a house, a good job, and a daughter, she immediately disqualifies him as a romantic prospect because she imagined figuring out adulthood with her Mr. Right, rather than being with someone who already has a stable life. I get having to give up on some of your romantic dreams (hello, 35-year-old single here!), but I simply couldn't understand Sarah's thought process.
Also, while I suppose this is technically a "clean" read, there are a few minor curse words, some sensual (and unnecessarily descriptive) kisses, and, most troubling to me, Sarah has a very casual attitude toward sex ... basically. It's clear she normally sleeps with (and often moves in with) her boyfriends, but she says that once she finds "the one," she wants to wait until her wedding night. Not only did I once again not understand Sarah's thought process, but I wished I would have known about these content issues before reading the book.
Content problems aside, I really think Searching for Sarah doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Is it a romance? Is it a family drama? For 3/4 of the novel, it's clearly a romance, but then it suddenly veers into family drama territory. There's a twist at that point that seemed to come so far out of left field that I found it virtually unbelievable, and it set events in motion that will continue into the next book.
And here's the thing: even though I've had many more negative than positive things to say about Searching for Sarah, I am interested in reading the sequel. As I said at the beginning of the review, it's incredibly engaging, and I want to know what happens with Sarah and Sam. But I also don't think I can recommend the book to others. 2-1/2 stars.
See what others had to say. (Many bloggers had a much more favorable view than I did, so be sure to check out their thoughts!)
Buy the book.
Julieann Dove lives in Virginia, yet longs to live everywhere else. It doesn’t come as a surprise that along with her gypsy soul, comes an active imagination. That’s why she loves to write and invent worlds and people, so that she can formulate their happily ever after. Hobbies include cooking new recipes, sewing, and spending time with her cute boyfriend/husband and five fabulous children. Vacations happen in Nantucket or the Carolina beaches—anywhere there is inspiration for her next book. One day she hopes to travel to Italy, drive one of those little cars around the countryside, and speak the language fluently!
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That's too bad the book didn't live up to expectations! I hate when a book has a promising set-up and then just doesn't deliver. Also I can be super picky about typos in books...
ReplyDeleteThe typos always bother me, but I rarely mention them in a review--so if I mention it, you know there were a lot! Thanks for stopping by, Anna!
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