Difficulty: II
Length: III
Quick Review: Grace Hammond is having a rough time, so she goes home to figure her life out.
As summer approaches, I’m trying to compile a list of books good for a vacation reading list. The Rules of Love and Grammar fits into that category perfectly. It’s light, romantic, and escapist in nature. Not a fabulous novel, but it holds its own as a beach read.
The book begins with Grace Hammond telling the reader exactly what is going wrong in her life. It was abrupt and unnecessary. In her early thirties, she loses her, her boyfriend, and her apartment before returning to her small hometown. While she tries putting her life back together, she takes a small job at a bike shop, dates, hangs out with her hometown best friend, rekindles old rivalries, and deals with the ups and downs of living with family.
Grace is your run of the mill grammar nazi, and, quite frankly, she comes off as a bitch. (I, as an editor, am always finding grammar mistakes in people’s work… So I get it. I do not point it out unless I am being paid because it is not a trait I have found that makes many friends.) Grace returns to her hometown which seems to bring out antics similar to those of a high schooler with a tendency towards exaggeration and fantastical scenarios. It felt immature at times. Her love sick puppy attitude made it a little hard to find the interesting person through the husband-hunter exterior.
Each chapter starts with a grammar rule and a sentence depicting the previously mentioned rule. The chapter usually reflects a similar concept in Grace’s life. It’s a cute way to effortlessly weave the theme throughout the book.
I have a difficulty reading books about grammar obsessed main characters, which seems to be the most important character quality to the author never developed just constantly mentioned. Once that personality trait has been established, I am on duty looking for any mistake. This does not disappoint. There were plenty of grammar mistakes including one in Simses bio. Though, this is not the author’s fault but the fault of the editor. It’s just irritating.
Simses tries to add a flair of mystery but does a thin job veiling what that is. The love interests are all lovely but highly predictable. To be completely honest, I had the entire plot figured out by page 17. The aspect I appreciate the most is the complexity of familial relationships: ie. siblings, parents, perception, reality, coping, etc. Simses touches on these thematically, but I think it would have been a stronger book had she focused on Grace’s reconciliation more than her love life. I really thought the ending was going to be strong aside from the predictable love story portion. However, Simses felt it necessary Grace narrate the meaning of the book instead of allowing it to speak for itself. I audibly cringed as she ruined what she had managed to turn around. Us readers are not dumb. We get it, unless, you wrote the next Lolita… but this is not that.
Personally, I enjoyed the bike shop aspect. My brother was a semi-professional cyclist, so my life revolved around bikes for many, many years. For me, that was sentimental.
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Memorable Quotes:
“”Let life unfold, or you’ll miss the chance to be surprised.””
Title: The Rules of Love & Grammar
Author: Mary Simses
Publisher: Back Bay Books (Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group)
Copyright: 2016
ISBN: 9780316382083
