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lizshayne 's review for:
Much Ado About Nada
by Uzma Jalaluddin
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I have two very specific complaints about this book. The first is the Elizabeth Bennetification of Jane Austen heroines. And while Jalaluddin is generally better than other writers at sticking to the feel of the book rather than the plot beats, I felt like this book could have used a little more Anne Elliott in its main character.
Which brings me to thing two - second chance romances tend to annoy me because you have to tread the fine line between "no sensible person would have broken up for this reason" and "why would you get back together with someone who DID that?" It's like trying to get Darcy to be the right level of socially awkward where he's definitely offensive, but not a dick. And the part where it fell apart actually made total sense to me. It was everything up until the...fourth time they reconnected that I kept wondering what these two were doing together.
Also, and this is just silly, I can't tell if *I* don't know as much as I thought I did about app development or the author doesn't, but either way, aspects of the development stuff just felt odd.
And, this is absolutely a culturally specific phenomenon, but the fact that they were married FOR YEARS made me immediately want to scream. Absolutely not, no ma'am, sets off all my women in chained marriages bells. And that also made it difficult
Having said that, I continue to delight in the community that Jalaluddin sets us in and the sense of camaraderie I feel with the romances she situates within a religious community navigating its own practices and devotion and relationship to the wider world. Especially when I get to play "can I guess the translation of that Arabic word based on my knowledge of Hebrew?"
Which brings me to thing two - second chance romances tend to annoy me because you have to tread the fine line between "no sensible person would have broken up for this reason" and "why would you get back together with someone who DID that?" It's like trying to get Darcy to be the right level of socially awkward where he's definitely offensive, but not a dick. And the part where it fell apart actually made total sense to me. It was everything up until the...fourth time they reconnected that I kept wondering what these two were doing together.
Also, and this is just silly, I can't tell if *I* don't know as much as I thought I did about app development or the author doesn't, but either way, aspects of the development stuff just felt odd.
Having said that, I continue to delight in the community that Jalaluddin sets us in and the sense of camaraderie I feel with the romances she situates within a religious community navigating its own practices and devotion and relationship to the wider world. Especially when I get to play "can I guess the translation of that Arabic word based on my knowledge of Hebrew?"