It has been so long since I've picked up a typical beach read, a standard piece of chick-lit any other time of year, that I'd forgotten how much they bug me. The predictable, formulaic, cheesy storyline of so many books in this genre make my literary brain hurt for at least three quarters of the novel. At that point, I've given in, and, knowing a "Hollywood ending" is on its way, just try to enjoy the ride.
How to Walk Away starts off immediately rubbing me the wrong way when the central character, a woman, is told to, "act like a man," in order to have better job interviews while she's on the hunt. She's just gotten her master's degree! She doesn't need to act like anyone but herself! It's all moot though since immediately after this disturbing introduction, Margaret and her boyfriend get in a plane crash and SPOILER ALERT she ends up in the hospital recovering from severe burns and a possible permanent paralysis from the knee down. This provides the right setting to introduce the brooding physical therapist, who also happens to be Scottish and incredibly cute, to use his tough-love facade to whip Meg back into shape. Her attraction to him seems one-sided, their love is forbidden, they've so many obstacles to overcome, blah, blah, blah.
I'm not going to lie though and say I didn't begin to care a little about the characters, because I did. I didn't necessarily appreciate everything they did or how haphazard some of the prose got simply to move the story along, but I was entertained. Sometimes the silly turns the story took were more entertaining than the story itself.
This soap opera of a book definitely was equal parts annoying and entertaining for me. Now I just have to figure out how to talk about it at book club without seeming too tough on the genre. It's hard to do for someone whose favorite books were all published in the previous two centuries.
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