Mariana Zapata - Dear Aaron

Ruby Santos knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she signed up to write a soldier overseas.
The guidelines were simple: one letter or email a week for the length of his or her deployment. Care packages were optional.
Been there, done that. She thought she knew what to expect.
What she didn’t count on was falling in love with the guy.

Comment: This is the third book by Mariana Zapata that I try. I enjoyed the other two enough to keep wanting to read more but comparing my overall feelings on it, of the three so far this was the one I would say is the weakest.

In this book we meet Ruby Santos, a young woman who is registered to correspond with a soldier in active duty as part of a program to help overseas soldiers to have a bit of connection to home. At first it seemed the soldier paired with her was not responding but a few weeks later after hr first letter, he did reply when she was about to give up.

From then on started a slow exchange of information, the two of them started to get to know each other, they started to confide and trust each other too and when it was time for Aaron, the soldier, to return home at the end of his deployment they mention meeting each other. When the time really comes though, can Ruby do it? Or if all her expectations prove to be a disappointment? What if Ruby isn't exactly as she claimed in her letters and Aaron feels like all their talking was a mistake?

The potential for this story is very good. Having had pen pals myself, I know how easy sometimes it was to share things with someone not there in your face to judge you. Of course it helps when they only got my version of events. I never corresponded with a guy though, all my letters were to female school friends during the summer holidays. 

But this romance by mrs Zapata had potential and if I could I'd divide the story in two parts: before and after they meet in "real life". Practically half of the story is the letters/email format of the exchange between them and the second part when they meet each other and start interacting for real.

As one might expect, the romance is slow burn but during the first part is actually great because that is how the reader also gets to know them and how they think. On one hand, it's cute to see them share things lie that but it's also complicated to imagine feelings can develop so quickly like that just by words on paper. I think this part of the novel as done as well as it could, considering the obvious lack of face-to-face conversation and how people base a lot of their opinion on facial and body language.

Then the second part... I think it was too much on the NA side although the characters are adults in age. I mean, their behavior in a house for the holidays, where Ruby goes to so she can meet Aaron and some of his friends...everything is proper, feeling like I'd say is relatively realistic, but there's something missing in how they are around each other besides the obvious awkwardness of knowing who that person is but not really yet a solid part of that person's life. I could sense Ruby's lack of comfort but she did try her best to be friendly to everyone else while sort of battling her feelings for Aaron which, at this point, we he reader are told, are stronger than just friendship.

This leads me to talk about the factor that downgraded this story for me. That are obvious things we are supposed to have, such as the slow burn romance and happy ending for them. 

However - and for me this is a major issue - we only have the heroine's POV. Ok, I get it, it's the author's trademark style and I should be used to it. Ruby is a god enough narrator and her "voice" wasn't too bad overall. 

The problem is, while Ruby is narrating her side of things of course the reader has to infer stuff not only about herself, in the things she doesn't say, about the romance, in the things she sort of says and about Aaron, in the things she only describes. Normally, this wouldn't need to be a problem but since there's only so much Ruby can tell about the other characters and Aaron's POV, some steps seem very silly and childish on her part. For me, it got to the point where Aaron stopped being a character we actually got to know independently from Ruby's loving eyes. 

Therefore, when they finally talk about their feelings it was like the reader knew about them, Aaron knew about them but the narrator describing everything was caught unaware! How silly!

Despite this, I did like the novel and most of it has interesting details to support the not so perfect aspects. The author clearly knows how to set the stage to develop a slow burn romance and her protagonists have many strengths. It's just such a pity the narrator is first person... I can only imagine how much stronger and addictive these stories would be in third person.

Grade: 7/10