2.5 Star
For every girl who wondered if she should love him or dump him.....
For every girl who listened to her heart instead of her friends advice....
For every girl who l wondered if she was wasting her time dating that guy....
meet Hilary....
She had gotten used to dating the commitment-phobic Marc, thirteen years her senior. They had a great relationship--why rush into things? She saw no need to pressure him for marriage, believing that when the time was right, he would propose. But after they had been together for four years, their friends decided to take matters into their own hands, pushing Marc to propose and making Hilary realize how much she really did want to marry the man that she loved. Unfortunately, Marc still wasn't ready--and their friends' meddling in the form of a faux engagement party led to a disastrous New Year's Eve that brought their relationship to an inevitable turning point.
Kathryn - 2.5 Star
Dangled Carat is a memoir which makes it tricky to review if you didn’t fall in love with it. The premise for the novel’s storyline must be based on Grossman’s own experience and in itself I found the story interesting and was intrigued enough to keep reading and see how it worked out in the end. I unfortunately found my interest waning a number of times, I think this was partially based on the pace of the novel and partially that I unfortunately didn’t warm to Hilary too much as a "character" (I think we'd probably get along great in real life!). The pace was probably true to events that occurred but, in my opinion, I wished that some events had been given more attention and that less detail had been given at other moments.
Grossman gave us a good picture though of the challenges faced when in love with someone who cannot seem to commit and I was impressed that at no time did I feel like Marc was being portrayed as the bad guy. In fiction it’s easy to make someone the target but it was obvious in her writing that she never felt this way about Marc (good thing too or there would be some disagreements in the publishing of this book I’m sure!). Marc and Hilary were both honest in their difficulties and I particularly enjoyed the snippets we received of their families’ thoughts on their relationship. Marc’s family and friends were so keen to get him to accept his future and made no secret of their thoughts about his not committing to Hilary- they thought he was being a wuss and it made me smile when they started getting on his case.
While I didn’t fall in love with Dangled Carat I can still see good points and enjoyed the way Marc and Hilary were both portrayed honestly.
Thank you to the author for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
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