Elle G. Mraz - Love Me Back to Life

Kendall Matthews is intelligent, quick on her feet, and compassionate - everything you'd want in an ICU nurse. When a fatal accident turns her world upside down, she struggles to pick up the pieces, uncertain that she'll ever regain control or rediscover her sense of self.
Dr. Anson Allaway is a renowned neurosurgeon... and an unapologetic playboy. Kendall's colleague at South Florida's Gold Coast General, he would never consider dipping his pen in the company ink (despite rumors to the contrary).
But everything changes when Kendall brazenly looks to Anson for an escape from her grief - and he unexpectedly finds his way back from the burdens of his own past.

Comment: This book caught my attention on one of the lists at GoodReads. Which one was it or featuring what exactly I no longer remember but after reading the blurb I immediately thought medical plot, a heroine being a nurse in a hospital recovering from a tragedy, I thought she has been cured of some disease and had fallen in love with her doctor. (Maybe I do see too many movies...)

I went to buy the ebook, after a month or so I added it to my reading list of March and I was quite eager to try it at last!

So, this book features Kendall, she is indeed recovering from a personal tragedy but it's the loss of her beloved husband and she has been in mourning...but now she's ready to "come back to life" and she decides that if there's one barrier she needs to overcome is to have sex again. She picks a doctor at her hospital, known for his attitude of never letting women cling and she thinks he's perfect to get sex out of the way for the first time after she became a widow.

However, emotions do get on the way and both Kendall and dr Anson must deal with baggage before admitting their one night stand is really just the beginning.

Ok, I thought this would be a emotionally sweet romance with a patient and her doctor so I was kind of let down when they were both working at the hospital but then again I was never against romances between doctors and nurses so I thought why not as long as the story would be interesting, but the truth is Kendall never warmed up to me and I couldn't really empathize with her because, the way this is written, I was left to think she was just looking to get her fears out of the way and the relationship never had a chance.

It's not often a heroine doesn't appeal to me but Kendall didn't. Sure, she needed to reaffirm her being a woman after a tragedy (although I could discuss the way she chose to resurface again) but there are many ways to find yourself again and her going after a man just to get sex out of the way, no matter how realistic, contemporary, sexually accepted or even emotionally, does not appeal to my romantic views. I just didn't like her from the start and it was difficult to change my opinion as the story moved along.

Now, if the story had started like this but then the romance developed well enough, I could maybe justify it as just a rocky start, but personally I never saw a positive evolution in the story. I lost count of the amount of times Kendall and Anson said they were just being friends with benefits but nothing serious would happen between them, then, in the next scene/chapter they would be jealous or angry the other didn't immediately realize they should matter. It was a constant going from and to the acceptance of the fact they had a relationship. Apparently, at the end of it all, they don't.

Anson is very mysterious and it looks, though most of the novel, that he is falling for Kendall. But I never really saw him as a developed character and not even the personal tale he shares with Kendall makes him more captivating to me.

I also wrinkled my nose at their behavior in professional terms. They didn't seem to work much on the page, the focus wasn't that, but one or two times there they were, behaving not very professionally an sneaking to kiss or fight talk about them.

The execution of the plot didn't seem very interesting. I confess I struggled because many of the scenes wouldn't seem to matter much, after all the focus was how sexual compatible they were and how emotionally weak both felt and what if they couldn't find a balance? Or what if they could?

To me, if the aim was to present a romance, it failed because I didn't think the story very romantic. If the goal was to give us a more woman's fiction, it lacked structure and something more, maybe flavor to make the reader glued to the pages. Honestly, I just wanted to finish.

Yes, there are some good things, I liked some secondary characters and some passages were interesting in that specific context, but overall...apparently I'm the only one thinking so in GR, my grade is the lowest the book has.

Of course, if the end or epilogue had been amazing I could excuse the author's debut, the not being used to her "voice" or "style" but the truth is the end is more than weird, people say it's a cliffhanger but I was totally confused, not only left in need to find out what would happen. I really don't understand why the author would go on that path! If it's the path I'm thinking, that is.

Come on, it's really weird and not that necessary, I think.

Now, apparently a new book, a follow-up or sequel will be released but I won't read it. I just don't feel that curious. The book wasn't expensive and this is the beauty of reading, of finding out new worlds, new sets where we can let our imagination free. To me, however, this one wasn't very pleasant despite the few good things.

Grade: 4/10