Author: Rebecca Farnworth
Amazon Link: Here
Valentine
Book Review
Valentine by Rebecca Farnworth has been on my ‘To Read’ list
for several years. Ever since I found out that she was the ghost writer for
Katie Price’s novels – yes I have read them, I own them all and I love them! –
I have wanted to read one of her own novels for a long time and I finally got
around to it yesterday. And I mean got around to it yesterday because I started
it and finished it – I had a long ass train journey.
The book is about Valentine Fleming, a struggling actress who
lives with her best friend Lauren and is secretly seeing a guy who has a
girlfriend. Oh and is constantly reminded that she has a boy’s name – like all
the time by every single person she meets. She manages to get a part in an
off-West End production where a wacky director wants her to perform in A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, half naked. Oh what it must be like to be a struggling actress.
Anyway, during this play we meet the male character who is of
course to fall for Valentine in the book – Jack Hart. I was surprised at how
early he was introduced and I wasn’t too sure what I thought of him at first.
He was a little too arrogant for my liking but I warmed to him after just a few
chapters. The relationship between them is a slow burn, especially as Valentine
is still sleeping around with douchebag (this is now his name) but they get
there in the end. And it is adorable!
Though I have to say, it feels as though they spent more of
the book building up to the relationship and then having it torn down then what
they did actually being together! I’m not going to say what happens that ruins
the relationship but I was sitting there thinking, I really don’t see how they
could come back from this but don’t worry, Farnworth found a way.
Her friendship with her best friend Lauren is brilliant and
reminds myself so much of my friendships with my friends. They talk about
everything – literally everything in this book from sex to men with hairy
backs. It’s all very riveting stuff. Lauren is very honest with her and tells
her basically what an idiot she is for sleeping with douchebag – as a best
friend should. Their friendship is one of my favourite parts about the book and
they are hilarious together.
Frank and Lily are two characters in the book that are sort
of weird and eccentric but sweet at the same time. They live in the same
apartment building and they hang out together though Frank and Lily are
slightly older than the two of them. Lily is also a big Valentine/Jack shipper
and pretty much near insists that the two of them should get back together.
Somewhere in the book, Valentine also finds out that her
father is a famous director (of course) and here is where I stopped the book
and was like seriously? We all know where this is going. But actually it
doesn’t. Her father doesn’t even contact her for like two months of the book
and when he does finally appear, he’s a bit shit and found myself thinking it
was probably best that Valentine never knew who he was at all. He does soften
up towards the end though (and clicks that his wife is a total bitch.) Hoorah!
I was getting towards the last part of the book and thinking
how the hell is our couple going to get back together now? How on earth is
Valentines life going to actually get better (because by this point, it was
crap) but Farnworth does it. And I’m not going to tell you how; you’re going to
have to read it yourself!
The best thing about this book though, is how real it is. The
character of Valentine is by no means perfect, which I find is all too common
in some novels, Valentine makes her mistakes and she admits to them too. I also
thought the way that the characters spoke was real too, though at time it did
feel a little disjointed. I find sometimes in books, the characters are
speaking in ways that no one would ever speak in real life and this really
grates on me.
I think the fact that I finished this book in one day – even
with the train journey – speaks volumes to how much I enjoyed this book. I
wasn’t even in a mood for reading. Now, I’m not saying it’s a classic and it’s
a literary genius or anything because it isn’t. It’s exactly what it says on
the tin. It’s a light-hearted, funny sometimes sad (seriously, I was near on
the verge of tears at the end) chick lit book! And it was exactly what I needed
after I depressed myself enough this week with reading The Fault in Our Stars
and Thirteen Reasons Why (which I also wrote a review for, so go check it out
;).)
I give Valentine a 7.5/10 and I will most definitely be
reading it again, I just don’t know when! :)
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