Somewhere I'll Find You

Review of Somewhere I'll Find You, by Lisa Kleypas:

Somewhere I’ll Find You is a far-fetched but decent story about two people wed as children by their controlling fathers. In defiance, Julia ran off as a teenager to become an actress, leaving her parents’ love and support behind in order to escape her forced marriage. When they finally meet, it turns out they’re both quite hot, so suddenly their forced marriage doesn’t seem quite so irksome. Unfortunately, Damon does not like her career, and Julia isn’t willing to give up acting. This conflict, with a couple of half-hearted plots tossed in, carries the story to its resolution.

I loved Julia Hargate—her passion for acting was moving, and she was fairly witty, kind, and genuinely torn between Damon and her career. Damon, on the other hand, was not likeable. He’s presented as the typical Kleypas alpha male, but he’s too mild to pull it off. Kleypas couldn’t seem to choose between sweet or overbearing for his character; I felt that he was, at heart, very sweet, but Kleypas unfortunately made him an ass. His possessiveness was excessive and obnoxious, and his change of heart about Julia’s career was unconvincing.

But the novel wasn't bad. The main conflict of Julia’s career seemed important and historically accurate. The book was interesting and read very quickly. And one of the side characters, Logan Scott, was a pleasure to read about. He got rather used and abused by Damon and Julia, but at least he kept things interesting.

There was one big flaw, however: the “forced marriage” was actually illegal, and everyone knew it from the start. The angst about the marriage didn’t make sense, since both Damon and Julia knew it was invalid. The entire premise was pointless.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy the read. I could’ve wished for a better match for Julia (coughLoganScottcough), but since she seemed to like Damon, I swallowed it. I give it a B-.