GIVEAWAY

Review: Life on the Edge

Thursday, February 6, 2014
13163303Title: Life on the Edge
Author: Jennifer Comeaux
Publishing House: Astraea Press
Publishing Date: January 3, 2012

Summary from Goodreads:
Nineteen-year-old Emily is new to pairs skating, but she and her partner Chris have a big dream–to be the first American team to win Olympic gold. Their young coach Sergei, who left Russia after a mysterious end to his skating career, believes they can break through and make history.

Emily and Chris are on track to be top contenders at the 2002 Winter Games. But when forbidden feelings spark between Emily and Sergei, broken trust and an unexpected enemy threaten to derail Emily's dreams of gold.


Review

Although I don’t understand any single thing about ice skating, I actually do love watching it.  It’s pretty awesome to see people glide on ice like as if they own the rink.  I have always loved that aspect, so I thought it’d be great to be able to read something related to ice skating.  To be able to visualise what’s happening on ice with my own imagination was what really prompted me to give this book a chance.  Not to mention that the cover is really nice too, with all those colours blending together.  It was what caught my eye at first, before the synopsis.

However, while I was in the middle of reading this book, I really wanted to drop it and stop.  I was on a reading slump for a long time, and I wanted to be able to read a book that could bring me back up again.  I thought I had a lot of expectations for this book, but I guess I was wrong.

Comeaux definitely captured Emily’s passion and drive for ice skating really well.  I was hooked with every performance Emily and her partner, Chris, had on ice.  I cheered for every success the pair made, and felt frustration whenever they were down.  However, I felt a bit more connection with Emily’s skating compared to her romance.

From admiring Sergei, to having coffee together and falling in love with him, the romance between Emily and him appeared to be more of lust rather than love.  This is because the development was too fast, and there were so many complications in the lives of both Emily and Sergei that there was little opportunity to further develop the romance between the two of them.  There was always something that prevented them from having quality time. There were also times wherein Comeaux had narrated things instead of showing them.  I would have preferred it being shown rather than said.  However, towards the end of the book, I somehow felt their connection more, which was good for me.

I thought Emily was boring at first, and this also became one of the reasons why I wasn’t so engrossed with the book, but she changed gradually and I came to like her personality better.  Nevertheless, I liked Sergei and Chris better than her character because both seemed more realistic.  Sergei was really sweet, and I liked that he was respectful of Emily’s choices and  responsible for his own decisions and actions.  Even though Chris had some issues with Emily, it was obvious that he was doing it for her.  I really liked the camaraderie between the two of them, and Chris seems to be someone that it would be really great to be friends with.

As for the pacing of story, I got confused at some parts.  There were at times where the story was narrated on a daily basis, but there were also times wherein it would jump a few months.  It was kind of confusing, and it didn’t make the story flow well.  Having the experiences of an entire year fit into one novel also sort of made it a little more fast-paced than usual.

Overall, I’m glad I decided to continue reading Life on the Edge, and I’d definitely recommend it to people who would be interested in reading a dramatic, contemporary romance, with a touch of ice-skating story.  I’m quite excited to read the second book already! :)

Rating

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Hi there! Thank you for taking your time to read through our posts and comment. We really do appreciate every comment we receive, and we try our best to comment back! :D