ShayKay's Review of Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Goodreads: Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Synopsis from Book

In a sleepy seaside town in Maine, recently widowed Eveleth "Evvie" Drake rarely leaves her large, painfully empty house nearly a year after her husband's death in a car crash. Everyone in town, even her best friend, Andy, thinks grief keeps her locked inside, and Evvie doesn't correct them.

Meanwhile, in New York City, Dean Tenney, a former Major League pitcher, and Andy's childhood best friend is wrestling with what miserable athletes living out their worst nightmares call the "yips": he can't throw straight anymore, and, even worse, he can't figure out why. As the media storm heats up, an invitation from Andy to stay in Maine seems like the perfect chance to hit the reset button on Dean's future.

When he moves into an apartment at the back of Evvie's house the two make a deal: Dean won't ask about Evvie's late husband, and Evvie won't ask about Dean's baseball career. Rules, though, have a funny way of being broken - and what starts as an unexpected friendship soon turns into something more. To move forward, Evvie and Dean will have to reckon with their pasts - the friendships they've damaged, the secrets they've kept - but in life, as in baseball, there's always a chance - up until the last out.

Thoughts Before Reading

This was one of the books I picked up for my birthday, and I honestly found it by chance! I was just scrolling through books on Books-a-Million and this one popped up. After reading the synopsis and looking at the book reviews it sounded like the best thing to buy with my birthday money. The fact that I willing picked up a book with hearing so little about it and being from an author I've never even heard of before just proves that Book of the Month has really got me looking at things outside of the norm for me. I love it! 

I thought the book sounded hilarious and very interesting. I hope it has just as many laugh out loud moments as the reviews say. The book itself sounds like another great summer read and I'm trying to cram in as many books as I can before I start classes again this week. I wonder if the book will look into Evvie's life before the car crash and how much Andy plays into the story between Dean and Evvie. From the synopsis I assume Dean and Evvie are going to end up together, but I really hope it isn't an instalove scenario. 

Halfway Through Check-In

So I'm really having a love/hate relationship with this book! I really want to love it, not just cause it cost so much but also because the synopsis of the book sounds right up my ally. But the writing style keeps throwing me! I can usually get into the book even when the reading gets rough. The story itself is really good but the writing style is rough. I think the hardest part for me to follow is the transitions. The book feels really choppy, and when the time moves I have to read it for a little bit just to realize that we are all of the sudden in a different time and there are different situations going on. For example, Evvie and Dean are just hanging out just talking and then boom it's another day. I know I'm not doing a really good job at explaining this, just think about one those picture flip books. Once I get into it then all of the sudden there are different things happening. So its just a little rough to get into the book and then stay there. I'm not to the point where I want to DNF the book because I really enjoy the book, it's just rough getting there.

*****Spoilerish*****

It's mostly through Evvie's perspectives, but every now and again we get glimpses through Dean's. I love Dean, I think he's really interesting to read about and I don't know what I want for him. Do I want him to get over the yips and go back playing baseball? Do I want him to get over this and just be with Evvie? I'm not really sure yet. Evvie definitely has some secrets going on, when the book opens you see her getting ready to leave her husband and then he was killed in a car wreck. Her story has been slowly coming out as the book goes on. I like to think that this book is so choppy because the author didn't want Dean and Evvie to just instantly be in love which I prefer not having that instalove in it but I think the book is trying so hard that it makes everything feel so forced together, and some of the layers thrown into the book I think I would rather see it less to make the book feel so rushed. This is so crazy because I love seeing the layers, they make the book!

Guys! I cannot decide if I like Evvie or not! I love Dean! So far his story has been interesting and he has this thing that works for him. But I just feel like Evvie is going to be one of those untrustable characters, and what you think is going to happen is going to be way worse. I just feel like there is something more going on with the whole reason why she wanted to leave her husband than what she is starting to admit too. I don't know if the choppy transitions make her look like this or not. It just seems that her skeletons are coming out of the closet and with each one she has something dramatic happen. So she wanted to leave her husband on the same day he died but why does that matter so much to her best friend. Why couldn't she leave and stay friends? I just don't know what is going on. Even though this doesn't make sense to me yet I'm still reading it, it's still interesting! Just in an annoying way. I can't wait to see how it ends.

After Thoughts

Well I finished it. I don't really know if the book just didn't click with me or if I just didn't like it. I think I just kept waiting for something more to happen with Evvie's story and it left me wanting more. Normally I like it when the book leaves me wanting more but with this one I don't think it fulfilled the story. First, I couldn't get past how the book was written, and I don't mean the writing style I mean the actual story. It just felt choppy to me and that the transitions just happened without really transitioning from one scene to another. Second, while being in Evvie's perspective she was really annoying but kept eluding to the way her husband treated her, and don't get me wrong he sounded like a horrible person, but she kept making me think that there was more to their past. The story kept feeling over-dramatic and the build up led to nothing! This part aggravated me the most. I mean if you are going to spend so much time talking about something but then never even getting to it then why even play it at all? 

I loved Dean's story the most throughout the whole book. Then it just devolved when he ran away to New York. It was like the whole time Dean was being himself and then all of the sudden he turned into someone being pushed around by the person he loved instead of fighting for her. There was just so much that made me mad while reading this book that just drove me nuts. That all being said I still gave the book two out of five stars because there really were some parts that I really liked and enjoyed reading.Would I read more by this author? Yes, I the story sounded cool it was just the execution that didn't go over really well.