Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I could never get past the amateurish writing and the simplistic characters & dialogue. The story line was not believable at all...the event that initially separated them was so absurd it was downright silly, and the events that followed were equally unbelievable, foolish, and unrealistic. Their entire 11-year separation was based wholly upon monumentally wrong assumptions about each other, without even a single word of conversation, nor any communication at all. NONE! Who does that in the real world? When you truly love someone, do you cut them out of your life inexplicably, without a word, for reasons that are so unjustifiable, it's laughable? Do you just run away from them based on something you merely saw in a moment, yet never asked them to explain? ***Spoiler Alert*** ***Spoiler Alert*** No young man in his right mind would take the blame for a crime he didn't commit, especially when the consequences were so great...and then cut everyone he loved off, simply so that the truth (which would immediately exonerate him, by the way) wouldn't come out and expose the real criminal. Yes, our hero, Cole cut off communication with, and therefore risked losing, the girl he supposedly truly loved in order to keep his guilty friend from going to prison. That Cole did all this was so far-fetched it was ludicrous. Then there was the next completely unrealistic event that separated our two young lovers for the long-haul: when Cole returns from his needless prison stay and finds that Allison, who was assumedly waiting for his return (though how could he have known for sure? He'd cut her off completely ever since the night of his arrest for the crime he didn't commit, as well as for the entire duration of his incarceration), is pregnant. One chance meeting, from a distance: Cole sees her huge belly and immediately turns and runs away, never saying a word, never letting her explain. And from there, an entire decade passes with him completely cut off from her-- he pointedly makes sure there's no way for her to contact him in any way (something which would of course clear everything up immediately, because she could tell him she'd been raped). During which time he shacks up in a mutually noncommittal, sex-based "relationship" with a woman so morally & emotionally vacant that he has absolutely nothing in common with her outside of bed--for nearly ten years. Yes, he actually stays with a woman he dislikes, for sex alone, for A DECADE. This is not only not believable, but it speaks volumes about his character, which we're *supposed* to admire. All the while, Allison spends the ten years completely celibate, being "just friends" with a handsome young bachelor who inexplicably wants to remain celibate, as well. I assume these far-fetched scenarios are an attempt to show how their undying love for each other keeps each of them from ever falling in love with or being in a true relationship with anyone else during their years of separation, but to me, it fell completely short of reality. Throw in several convenient deaths (one was so far-fetched I actually laughed out loud when it was stated what happened); a rape that goes entirely unreported for no feasible reason; a convenient barren sister/pregnant-by-rape sister = perfect adoption scenario, followed by the adoptee later finding out about her adoption (rather than having been told from birth) and being devastated by it (for a day or so, anyway). And finally, after one of the aforementioned deaths brings Cole home to at last meet Allison face-to-face after so long, they have a brief, shallow conversation about the past ten years, and it's all cleared up. Cole then has a sudden epiphany that the woman he's been nailing for almost a decade IS morally repugnant and "all wrong" for him after all, so he dismisses her immediately on the spot. With this, we have the perfect setting for him to finally decide, all in the last few pages of the book, that he belongs with Allison. Of course, she's felt the same about him all along. How could she not, with a man so rational, so wise, so prone to truly communicate with her (please note the sarcasm)? They're married abruptly, and the book ends equally abruptly, with no depth at all given to their "new" relationship. This comes as no surprise, though, as there was no depth ever given to any of the relationships in the book, nor to the characters. I'm not sure I even read the same book people are talking about in some of the 5-star reviews, because these characters were extremely shallow (and unlikable, but that's more a matter of opinion, I suppose). Throughout the book I felt frustrated constantly, trying to figure out who the characters were, and trying to find something—anything— to like about them...to no avail. The dialogue was so simplistic and superficial, it reminded me of my own attempts at writing fiction as a teenager. When I look back at those youthful writings, it's amusing how shallow and silly it all sounded. I felt the same way as I read the dialogue in this book...actually, I felt that way as I digested most of the story line. The only reason I kept reading was because I was waiting for their reunion. I was hoping for a decent, satisfying confrontation between them where they each explained all the misunderstandings and addressed the needless devastation to their relationship that was all caused by Cole's childish lack of communication. As I mentioned above, there was a brief attempt at this, but because the dialogue and development were so shallow and lacking, I was left sorely disappointed.