If you like your romance with tons of sap and the sort of head-scratching obtuseness that keeps its characters apart for no discernible reason, then First-Time Caller is for you. Me? I rolled my eyes through the whole thing.
This started out all right, sweet and earnest if a bit cheesy. Lucie has been a single mom for a long time and is feeling lonely. Her daughter calls up a romantic radio talk show to see if she can help her mom find some love. And what do you know, Lucie and the host Aiden hit it off immediately and there's sparks everywhere, and so we've got ourselves the beginnings of a romance.
Yep, that's all good, but that's only enough content to cover like a chapter or two. And so I find myself asking, what will the rest of the book be about? Well, it seems like the author was asking herself that same question for the rest book too, because nothing else of consequence happens. We just follow Lucie and Aiden as they talk and spark but deny that they like each other due to various made-up reasons, for hundreds of pages.
Every scene, every interaction, every dialogue just goes on and on. They say the same things to each other, they rehash the same dubious reasons on why they can't be together. Like have mercy, right? We don't need everything spelled out in such excruciating detail, every scene so thoroughly beaten to death.
Tension in a story comes from what is unsaid, not what is said. It is what the reader fills in with their mind in between the lines. So when you stretch every scene and every moment to the max, you have effectively removed all the tension from the story. And you know what you have when there is no tension in a romance? One big bland slog. And indeed, that is this story.
And the longer this went on, the less patient I became. What started out as mildly flirtatious dialogue soon stretched into the sort of awkward, cloy chatter you'd overhear from teenagers and cringe at in real life. And Aiden's grumpy demeanor morphed into the kind of emotionally unavailable character that no real, self-respecting woman would touch with a ten foot pole.
In fact, it got so bad through the second half that I found myself hoping Lucie would come to her senses and ditch Aiden. Lucie, run away! You deserve so much better!
All these issues can be traced back to one problem—the book was just too long. It did not have enough content to fill up over 400 pages. And so instead of coming up with some additional believable conflict or trimming it down, the author instead chose to go with what she had and pad it up. And that's exactly what it feels like when you read it. Every chapter is just the same thing over and over, the same dialogue on repeat, the same angst as to why they couldn't possibly be together when nothing was standing in their way.
So yeah, to all the folks who read this and loved it and want Aiden to be their boyfriend, have at it. I'm taking my ten foot pole and running the heck away.
Readaroo Rating: 2 stars
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