Archer's Voice

Archer's Voice by Mia Sheridan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is chick lit done really, really well.

Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of chick lit.

It's the story of Archer, who is mute because of an accident that happened when he was seven years old. He's a hermit living on the edge of town and generally avoids everyone in the town where he lives. They all think he's "not right." Bree comes to town because she's trying to get past a robbery that happened in her dad's deli - the thief murdered her dad and nearly assaulted her and she has PTSD as a result. This is the story of their romance.

Let me be clear here: this is done so well. The writing is wonderful. The plot is enjoyable with lots of drama. The characters have depth and the author spends a lot of time letting us get to know them before they get to know each other. There's a shocker ending. And the romance is fabulous.

But here's my problem with chick lit in general: all the conflict in the plot comes from external influences and circumstances. There's never any conflict between the two characters. It's usually the two of them against the world in some fashion or another. This tends to turn it into a sappy mess of infatuated people saying "I'll love you forever" and various other platitudes. Then there's an epilogue where they're 5-10 years down the road and living happily and "oh, I'm so in love with him even more than I was when I met him." That's nice and all but please. That's not real life. Of course in these sorts of novels it's not supposed to be real life.

But everything we read has an effect on us, influencing us in some way or another. These sorts of books done up so neatly tend to feed the idea that there really is a knight in shining armor for every misunderstood princess. Books of this sort don't have to hold all the problems of real life - otherwise we'd never read them. But having some connection to reality is in order. There is another book which has a main character with this same disability: What I Didn't Say by Keary Taylor. It's YA but done so well; it's a much better version of this book. The connection to reality in that book is what this book is missing.

Archer's Voice is a good, entertaining Lifetime movie. If you're in the mood for one of those, then this is your book - because it is exactly that, done really well. Excellent for the beach. It will tug on your heartstrings and make you swoon. For me, it was like eating too much sugar - I felt a bit queasy at the end.






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