Let's Get Textual
The Texting series, Book 1
Teagan Hunter
CreateSpace
Fiction, Humor/Romance
Themes: Cross-Genre, Schools
**+
Description
College senior Delia just broke up with her long-time boyfriend Caleb, and though it was an amicable and mutual split, it never feels great to go back to sleeping alone. Maybe that's why, when a stranger mistakenly texts her, she chose to reply instead of simply deleting it... which is how she "met" Zach. Their text exchanges soon become the highlight of her days. He's clever. He's nerdy. He shares her sense of humor. But will their sizzling chemistry translate to the real world, or is this strictly a textual relationship?
Review
This was a quick audiobook, a bit of a palate-cleanser between my usual genre reads. Romances can have some great dialog
and character interactions, and Let's Get Textual delivers some truly fun exchanges between Delia and Zach... and if
the power imbalance between the two (he's a young, wealthy, successful entrepreneur already, while she's a struggling
college senior with zero clue what she's going to do with the degree she's a semester away from earning) becomes a bit
glaring, they both seem mature enough to actually be capable of an adult relationship, instead of giggling teens forever
playing games or leaping to ridiculous conclusions... at least, at first. There also, oddly enough, doesn't seem to be much
in the way of a story, the usual complications and greater goals outside the relationship that drive the average (or average
in my limited reading experience, at least) romance plot; for the most part, it's just Zach and Delia getting to know each
other and developing their connection - and, yes, there's heat and innuendo almost from the start, but they're both adults
about it and capable of waiting until they're more sure of their relationship before making that leap.
Not long after that progression, though, Delia takes a serious nose-dive in intelligence and maturity, when a cardboard
villain character and a manufactured crisis (which is barely hinted at until it reaches said crisis point) creates a
manufactured response that completely flies in the face of how she behaved toward Zach earlier and made me seriously doubt
whether she was, in fact, mature enough to handle a relationship after all. How she deals with that setback becomes
increasingly ridiculous - as her own friends point out - and also turns a pet into a pawn in a relationship, which is an
automatic ratings knock. (I was already somewhat iffy about the pet baby goat subplot; just because an animal's "cute"
doesn't mean it's an ideal pet, let alone an ideal impulse purchase... especially since she's the one fawning over baby
goat pics and Zach's the one who goes and buys one because her apartment doesn't allow pets. There's just something about
treating a living animal, especially an animal that's not really meant to be a cuddly housepet and will undoubtedly outgrow
its "cute" phase very quickly, as a toy or prop - then turning that prop into an object in a stupid emotional tug of war
between grown adults - that really rubs me the wrong way.) So, while I enjoyed the fun interplay between Delia and Zach and
almost laughed out loud at some of their text exchanges, I found myself very put off by the final stretch of the story,
enough to drive the rating down significantly.