Book Review: Wish You Were Here by Renée Carlino

s y n o p s i s

Charlotte has spent her twenties adrift, floating from interest to interest, job to job, and guy to guy, searching for a spark but never quite finding it. All she knows is that she won’t discover it working as a waitress at a pies-and-fries joint in Los Angeles or living with her fun but aimless best friend in a tiny apartment in the Arts District.

Then Charlotte collides with Adam, a gorgeous and soulful painter who seems just as lost as she feels. Their instant connection turns into a midnight drink… and a whirlwind night of champagne, Chinese food, and the kind of conversation that only happens in romantic comedies. But the next morning, Adam gives Charlotte the cold shoulder, leaving her confused and hurt—and wondering if the few odd moments between them the night before were red flags in disguise.

Months later, Charlotte hasn’t been able to shake Adam, so she decides to find out what happened the morning after their magical night together. This fateful decision rewrites their wild love story, but what Charlotte doesn’t know yet is that the ending has already been written.

f i r s t s e n t e n c e

Tuesdays were tortilla soup days at Blackbird’s Café.

m y o p i n i o n

If you’ve been following my blog more attentive recently, you must have noticed that Wish You Were Here is the second book by Renée Carlino, which I’ve read within just a few days apart.

First reason for that is that I am not buying any more books since I started to pack my stuff in a big box which will go to Germany soon. And guys, books are so heavy. So, Wish You Were here was one of the last books left on my Canada tbr pile.

The second reason is that I really enjoyed reading Swear On This Life and so, I’ve been in the mood for another Romance novel.

The storyline of Wish You Were Here was really sad but beautiful and I liked that not only love was a topic but also friendship and family. The mixture makes the reading more interesting and you get to know the characters on different levels which is nice.

Though I enjoyed the beginning of the book, the end disappointed me a little bit., I expected it be more realistic and not as dramatic and overdone as it is. It is for sure a beautiful and sad ending but for my taste too dramatic.

Wish You Were Here reminded me a lot of Swear On This Life. For some reason the main characters were pretty similar which means, I couldn’t connect with Charlotte, the main character of this book, either. Both characters don’t get their lives together until they meet the male main character which I find too dependent and basically too mainstream.

The character Charlotte didn’t seem fully developed and I couldn’t identify myself with her, which I find should be the purpose of a main character.

I already talked about the end and how I was disappointed by it and I think that Charlotte is mostly responsible for it. After the main event she acts like she doesn’t care about anything anymore and I just couldn’t relate with that. It was too exaggerated. The last ten pages were too exaggerated and too unrealistic. When a person goes through something like this, I can’t imagine that would be the best way to handle it.

Ahh it’s so hard to get my thoughts out without any spoiler, so I am going to leave it like this right now, I think.

s u m m a r y

I know, it probably seems like I didn’t like Wish You Were Here but that’s not true. I liked it as a fast, easy feel-good book for in between. It has a sweet love story and cute characters but I wouldn’t expect a life changing book. That is my opinion and I hope I could help you guys a little bit. I will definitely buy some other books by Renée Carlino because I need the loveeee.