Worth A Read Yes and No
Length 304
Quick Review A predictable love story about a widow and a pro baseball player beginning again.
Evvie Drake has lived in small town Maine all her life. She’s married to the beloved doctor. Her porch is the prettiest in town. As she packs her bags to leave him and her life behind, he dies. There are pages one through four. Evvie is forced to figure out what to do next because it’s impossible to leave a dead husband. Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes is a sad and funny look into the after.
The plot is subpar and not interesting in any way. It’s about as trite and saccharine as a love story can be. Every single character and interaction is overdone and predictable. Nothing is a surprise. The sad girl who’s only ever been seen by one man and is the pity of the town even though the dead husband was *gasp* abusive is finally seen as sexy and alluring in her sweaters by a famous ex-baseball player who is going through his own struggle because he can’t pitch anymore *oh no!!!*. They flirt, boink, go their separate ways because misunderstanding, throw in a dog and some great scenery, cut to the last ten pages, and you know the ending.
The only redeeming factor to the Evvie Drake Starts Over is Holmes’ dialogue. Though the plot is crap, the dialogue and humor pulled me through. As much as the characters are a bore, I do like them. They’re funny and witty and completely flawed. Evvie resonates with me because I too existential crisis “”lie on the floor in the middle of the night and contemplate my existence.”” Holmes paints the characters as if they are much older than their early thirties. I’m not even in my thirties and I love sweaters, but leading with those factoids makes Evvie seem old and matronly. Add in the widowhood, and I had to keep reminding myself she was basically my age. The conversations between characters is funny in the way I like to think I am with my friends:
Evvie: “”Everything okay?””
Dean: “”Yeah, yeah, sorry about the noise. Knocked a box off the counter. It’s never the box with the sheets in it, you know? It’s always whatever will make it sound the most like you tried to murder a robot by throwing it down a couple of flights of stairs.””
It’s super baseball themed because the love interest is a sports dude, ugh. The book is split into parts: Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer to Opening Day.
Honestly, the plot in Evvie Drake Starts Over makes me sad. The dialogue is funny and engaging. I was hoping this would be something more… I can’t tell you what, but I was hoping it would be a better version of a rom-com. Although, it is a great read for vacation. I powered through it in one day on the beach. Tough life, I know.
Memorable Quotes
“Evvie’s Scandinavian grandmother had claimed that young women dream about the husbands they want, old women dream about the husbands they wanted, and only the luckiest women, for a moment in the middle, dream about the husbands they’ve got.”
“She stretched out on the sofa, trying to ignore the do something, do something voice…”
“”Climate-change denial is flat-earth idiocy for people who want us all to drown.””
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Title: Evvie Drake Starts Over
Author: Linda Holmes
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780525619246