Promise to Marry started out fine, but as the book went on, all the cracks started to show. Characters started to talk out of character. The book even ended on a cliffhanger which is a no-no complete with a twist that made me go "WTF?! Where in the **** did that come from?" But in a very BAD way, because it seriously came out of NOWHERE.
The premise is fine. A guy and a gal met young, became the best of friends, and even made a bet... If both of them are not married by 30, they will marry each other. However, in the present day, she's about to turn 30, and they are now so cold toward each other, there are frost bites because there has been some sort of betrayal...
The book has THREE major strikes against it.
1) Characters behaving out of character. The adults talk fine, but a lot of the stuff was a flashback to when they were kids... Except these 10-year-olds talk like adults and think like adults.
2) The book ends on a cliffhanger to make you buy the next few volumes.
3) Unfortunately, to explain this, I will have to spoil the story.
SPOILER WARNING
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED
Apparently, the girl decided to make extra money by becoming a prostitute (!) while going to college (eek!) and one of her clients was the guy's dad. And the guy found out... very publicly. This twist/bomb was dropped literally in the final pages of this book with absolutely ZERO warning. The girl's circumstances don't seem to be poor enough to warrant selling herself, much less selling herself to someone she knew back in town?!?!?! This feels like the sort of plot-twist one would come up with by throwing a couple story dice (tm) without proper polishing!
Even without the three strikes, you basically have juxtaposing scenes of young innocent guy and gal vs. present-day cold and distant guy and gal neither of whom really want to talk about it. Lame.
All in all, this book is basically unreadable.
Category: Contemporary
Primary Plot: Cliffhanger book with children talking like adults and a twist that came out of nowhere just to set up the sequel... ARGH!!!!!
Overall Rating: 1/5
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