Member Reviews
I'm really sorry, but I won't be able to provide a review for this book on any of my normal platforms. I have a policy not to give reviews unless I can provide an honest and positive review. Unfortunately, I struggled with this book and finally had to DNF after multiple attempts to read. Just because I didn't connect doesn't mean others won't, so I see no point in harming the author by providing a negative review, especially seeing as how I only made it about 60% in.
Thank you for the opportunity to read.
The acknowledgements page thanking the author’s “beta” and their daughter for the cover design were my first clues there may be some quality issues. Then, from the first chapter, Heidi infodumps about her girlfriend, her ex-husband, how over scheduled she is... I’m definitely sympathetic to her situation, but I don’t feel any personal stake in it.
Overall, it is a promising story but needs some heavy editing before it’s ready for mainstream audiences.
I really wanted to love this one. The cover is beautiful and the premise was fun.
I appreciated that Heidi was trying to be the perfect parent and that meant her relationships fell short. In this Groundhog’s-Day-themed story, she has to learn how to balance her kids’ activities and needs with her job, relationships, expectations, and her own desires. This means she has to learn how to appropriately ask for help, even from her ex, and find a romantic relationship that isn’t forced.
Ultimately, the book was too repetitive. Whole pages of repeat text was just not enjoyable. It really made me want to skip ahead to her waking up and learning who she was dating.
I did see some nice quotes, and am hopeful that other books from this author would be more enjoyable.
A groundhog day type of story is hard to pull off and it doesn't always work. For me, in the case of this story, it was a miss.
Heidi is a single mom of 3 and she struggles with planning everything and not overloading her schedule as well as her kids' schedules. The day this story revolves around is very chaotic, with lots of overlapping activities and Heidi is just not great with telling time. The kids have a dad, he is in the picture, but he and Heidi aren't on the best of terms and can't really get their shit together to deal with the kids. The kids are 10, 13, and 18, so I also don't really get all the hovering, but that's an entirely different point. Needless to say, Heidi's day doesn't go as planned/ hoped, far from it. So when you get to her first do-over day you expect some changes, and let me tell you... You get them, but not the way you might be expecting and it isn't a good thing. Really crucial details of the day change every do-over and it seems more like it's several possible versions of the day, involving different people, with similar outcomes actually. Heidi doesn't really realise she is repeating the day over and over, but she has these sort of memories that pop in her head to make her think she has experienced it before.
Overall each do-over is extremely repetitive, I've scanned a lot of the book, just to see if there was something different and only really reading that. As mentioned doing a groundhog day type of story can be difficult, especially in writing, but the premise is an interesting one, this story just has too many flaws for me to be able to enjoy it. And I honestly think that this type of book can be done, but the writing on each do-over needs to be switched up, not just a copy and paste from the previous one and some changes to the final conversation of the main character's day. And changing some very critical parts of the story doesn't work at all. I can't say what it is without spoiling it, but it had me confused at first, to be very annoyed by it later. It just made no sense to me. And the ending? Don't even get me started on that one...
On the plus side the writing style is rather good and the struggles Heidi faces with scheduling her kids and all things seem real.
If you are looking for a different romance to read then this is the book for you. It's essentially groundhog day in book form where single mom Heidi is reliving the same day a couple of times in order for her to learn how to juggle 3 kids, a significant other, an ex-husband and the expectations of all of them.
It was an interesting premise and I was curious to see how it would work out. I enjoyed the book overall. It was not exactly like groundhog day since some essential things changed from day to day, but it was interesting to see how Heidi struggled with all of her responsibilities during the day and the effect it all had on those surrounding her. All in all this is not a romance like you would normally but if you let go of that expectation and enter this book with an open mind it will give you an interesting, different plot about the struggles of a single mom and how she can still find love if she works out what to do.
***An ARC was provided by Netgalley in exchange for a honest review. ***
2.5 rounded up
Wanted to like this one but it was a miss for me. The premise was good and sounded great but it didn't work out. The characters were well written. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book
This book follows Heidi’s day, a very chaotic day, over and over again trying to be better each time.
I was very intrigued by this book after reading the little premise. During the first time Heidi goes through her day you can see how much goes wrong with three children, an impending proposal and no support. However, once you start going through the re-do's of the days I found them extremely repetitive. I was scanning the pages and stopping when something was different from what she had said or done before. After the 3rd re-do of her day I was just not interested anymore.
I applaud the author for trying this very peculiar type of story, however it was not for me. Unfortunately.
This ARC was provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I liked the premise of this book but the delivery didn't quite live up to my expectations. I think it's really hard to pull off this format well. It's so easy for it to feel repetitive, rather than interesting. And unfortunately that's how I felt with this one.
I was also confused, because instead of the day repeating, giving Heidi the chance to fix things as I expected, really crucial details are changed each time. So you're not really dealing with the same day over and over. It's more like looking at lots of possible versions of a day, with different events that have led up to it. Rather than the character knowing they're repeating the day and trying to do it better. But she does sort of remember the day, even though it's a totally different day really. All in all it felt a bit chaotic.
Having said all of this, I didn't dislike it. I really liked how it shows the struggles Heidi faced as a single parent. Although the kids have a dad, he's difficult to deal with. And Heidi feels a really heavy sense of responsibility, like she has to do everything for them alone and never ask for help.
In the end it was ok. I'm not sure if I'd rate it two or three stars, because it wasn't a bad book, it was just a serious case of it not being the right book for me.