In LOVE AND BIOLOGY AT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, Mira Serafino's life takes an unexpected turn when she discovers that her college-sweetheart husband is unhappy in their marriage. In response to this revelation, Mira flees her conventional small-town life in order to find herself while working at a coffee shop called the Center of the Universe in Seattle. The cast of characters includes Mira's rebellious 20 year old daughter, a former rocker friend named Lannie who runs a music/yarn shop and Mira's elderly matriarch Italian grandmother.
I was really disappointed by this book. In spite of the fact that the characters are going through very relatable life issues, I didn't connect with any of them. Mira ultimately came off as selfish, whiny and impetuous. The author kept hinting at other story threads that had the potential to be compelling such as Mira's broken relationship with her little brother. However, these story lines never panned out. The book felt all over the place and never reached the great depths that the story promised. I wanted so much to care about the characters but the author tried too hard to tell the story from different viewpoints and flashbacks and spread the story too thin. I couldn't even understand the point of the inclusion of some of the characters and storylines.
BOTTOM LINE: Not recommended. The book had a lot of potential but ended up being a mess of shallow characters that didn't prove very interesting or compelling.
2 comments:
I am sorry you didn't enjoy this one, Amy. I came at it expecting something very superficial and personally found that it was deeper than I had anticipated. Perhaps we came at it from completely different angles. I could identify with bits and pieces of the characters and that helped my enjoyment of the novel too, I am sure.
Hopefully you will enjoy the next book you read much more!
Hi Litty Kitty! I thought the subject matter and setup of this book was great and I was predisposed to like it. However, I could never connect with Mira and I think that ruined the book for me. One of the things I love most about books is that they can speak in different ways to different people so it's nice to hear that you had a different experience. I'm sure others will as well.
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