It All Comes Back to You - Beth Duke - ★.½

AUTHOR: Beth Duke

SERIES: It All Comes Back to You, #1

GENRE: Romance-Drama

RATING: 1.5 stars

In a Nutshell: Good concept, jumpy and clichéd writing. I expected the story to hit me more in terms of emotions, given its premise. Frankly, I don't understand the high rating.

Story Synopsis:

1947, Alabama. Seventeen-year-old Violet is living a happy life being the centre of attraction and the target of every boy’s heart. She has her future mapped out and is ready to take it on. But as we all know, life doesn’t go as we plan it.

2012. Violet is still the centre of attraction but in different ways. When she dies in the assisted living facility, she leaves her nursing aide Ronni with a generous gift, but on the condition that Ronni pen and publish Violet’s story within one year. Already insecure about her writing ability as well as her appearance, Ronni is stuck between her promise to Violet and the care facility’s note about confidentiality, with the situation being even more delicate as Violet’s old stories contain loads of secrets.

The book comes to us in the first person perspective of Ronni in 2012, with Violet’s historical perspective written in third person.

Where the book worked for me:

✔ The cover is gorgeous and so is the title. The latter applies to the book in many ways, some sweet and some dark. (You need to wait till the end to realise its true significance.)

✔ There was a surprising twist towards the end that I didn’t see coming at all. That was the only point in the novel where I went ‘Whoa!’

✔ The second half has some interesting events as against the first half that’s mostly stuck in a loop. (Cant reveal more – spoilers.)

✔ The book covers quite a few important themes (though not necessarily doing justice to all.) Gaslighting and domestic abuse are two that might cause triggers – read with care. Other themes include drug abuse, foster parenting, adoption, teen pregnancy, separated families,…

✔ I could speed through it. Saved a day of my reading life!

Where the book could have worked better for me:

❌ For a story that is so character-oriented, it is very important to have at least a few characters who are relatable and likeable. The only who came somewhat close to being so was Ronni. Her childhood traumas and her present insecurity are reflected well in her personality. She did need to have a spine though. Anyone could talk her into anything. And someone needs to tell her that size 12 isn’t fat!

Unfortunately, a story cannot stand on the shoulders of just one character. Violet was everyone’s “love of my life” in the book, but I couldn’t stand her. She comes across as very self-centred and shortsighted. Things do change in the second half, but by then it was a bit too late for me to appreciate her as a victim and not a manipulator.

❌ The men in the story are, without exception, either creepy or weird. Almost all the men are stalkers to some degree or the other. One of them even starts off quite early at the age of ten. Yikes! The bigger problem is that none of the women characters call any man out on the misogyny but find all their gestures romantic and/or sweet. Dear God!

❌ While there are PLENTY of events in the book, there are barely any scenes that caused me to empathise with the emotion in them. The description of the feelings is almost nonexistent, and the writing felt like it was working through a checklist of plot points to be included.

❌ There are quite a few jumps across scenes as well as in between scenes, and these aren’t written clearly. Many scenes rush by in a hurry. I felt like I was watching a movie on fast forward. None of the conversations have a realistic flow to them.

❌ Most romance readers fall in two categories – they either want spicy scenes or they don’t. This book is confused. It builds up the steam much beyond the ‘clean level’ and then suddenly slams the door in your face - THUD! So it won’t work for either group of readers in terms of its steam-o-meter. (FWIW, I am in category one.)

❌ Having the right character detailing towards the start is always helpful in picturing them as well as understanding their behaviour. But that doesn’t happen here. The character detailing is quite vague. There are hardly any physical descriptions of the women characters except for their size/shape. We don’t even know how old Ronni is until almost half the book has gone by. This is despite the fact that Rick keeps telling her that she was too young for him.

❌ I have many more complaints but they will fall in the MAJOR SPOILERS category. Most centre around how smoothly and conveniently some elements of the plots were fixed together, even if farfetched to us.

All in all, this story had potential but the poor writing let me down badly. It was quite amateurish, which, to be honest, I didn’t expect from such high ratings. It’s not a debut work, which is one more reason I am so surprised at how this went. If you do pick it up, I hope it goes way, way, way better for you!

I wanted to ask you to wish me luck for the sequel, which I HAVE to read by tomorrow. But I am at 35% of Book Two, and it is a lot better than this one. Let’s hope it stays that way (or improves) till the end.