Review: Loving Mr. Daniels by Brittainy C. Cherry

Title: Loving Mr. Daniels
Author: Brittainy C. Cherry
Publication date: May 11th 2014
Buy the book: Amazon / Barnes and Noble



To Whom it May Concern, 

It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates. 

When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss. 

When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons. 

Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.

It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.

It was ours. 

And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for loving Mr. Daniels. 

-Ashlyn Jennings

(Image and summary taken from Goodreads.)

Review:

I was pretty excited to read Loving Mr. Daniels, not only because of its very lovely cover but also because one; I have a huge love for student/teacher romances and two; a lot of the bloggers I follow seem to have enjoyed it so I decided to give it a try. End result? A very confused Louisse.

If there's one thing I absolutely hate when it comes to books, it's insta-love. The whole "love at first sight" bit just doesn't do it for me. I mean seriously, what if the guy/girl you instantaneously fell in love with has some kind of quirk you absolutely hate? And there's really nothing romantic about insta-love. Which is why it was really difficult for me to thoroughly enjoy this book, the way Ashlyn and Daniel connected so easily seriously peeved me. But, yes there is a but, I did enjoy the banter and quips between Ashlyn and Daniel. Their chemistry was palpable and as the story goes on, you do see an authenticity to their relationship.

It took me a while to like Ashlyn as a heroine because there were times she was just too self-centered. She always mentions her sister's death, always tries to make a deal out of things and is whiny. Period. And she was super confusing and indecisive in general. Still kinda annoys me when I think about it. However, on the flip side, Ashlyn was an intuitive person, she was intelligent and gave as good as she got. I wish that Brittainy Cherry took more time to really shape Ashlyn's character because she had so much potential to be someone great but in the end, just fell flat.

Mr. Daniels (full name: Daniel Daniels, I pity the guy) was kind of "ehhhh" for me. Sure he was hot and had insanely beautiful blue eyes, as Ashlyn never fails to mention, and was super witty; but like Ashyln, he fell flat. There wasn't enough personality in him to make him "swoon-worthy" or just likable. I did like the lyrics that the author placed in each chapter because they were pretty awesome, so the whole band thing worked out for Mr. Daniels. What didn't work out was the fact that he pretty much quoted Shakespeare all the friggin' time. I mean yeah, the guy is a romantic but man, it gets old... and creepy. I'm not even going to mention the inappropriate times Mr. Daniels has quoted Shakespeare. Sigh.

Okay, there was a scene in the latter part of the book that completely confused me. I didn't understand why it needed to happen because nothing good came from it. People reacted for a bit but after that? Nothing. Life just went on. I was left pissed off that it happened and emotional after reading the paper. And can I just say? This book has so much death in it. Seriously. Seriously.

Can't say that I completely disliked the book, it did have good parts but they really weren't enough to salvage the book, in my opinion. The parts that I really liked didn't last to the end and the parts that I liked were too few. I do understand the appeal of the book to other readers though, it talks a lot about life, love and other typical things that most people go through but they were imbalanced and incomplete. The characters would focus on one thing and then abruptly move on to the next topic with giving the earlier subject closure. If I could enumerate everything I didn't like about this book, I would but I can't. There was just too many. But I will give props to Brittainy Cherry for creativity and slight depth, which is why this is a 2-star review and not a 1-star one.

I really wish I could say that I enjoyed this book, but I would be lying to you and myself. There were just too many downs when it came to Loving Mr. Daniels, because by the end of the book, I didn't love Mr. Daniels. So yeah, that's it.

Rating: