Book info

• Title Innocence
• Author Kathleen Tessaro
• Year 2005
• Genre Romance

It's 1987 and Evie is leaving home for the first time, headed for London to study acting. Along with her fellow students and roommates, Imogene (a born again Laura Ashley poster child and frustrated virgin) and Robbie (native New Yorker, budding bohemian, and very much not a virgin), Evie's determined to make her mark both on stage and off. But then life and love, in the shape of struggling rock musician Jake Albery, intervene. And everything changes. Fourteen years later and Evie's stuck. She's now a single mother teaching drama classes, her dreams long since abandoned. Robbie's dead, killed in car accident and Imo's lost touch. Then a friendship from the past comes to haunt Evie. Literally. And suddenly everything is about to change again.

Thoughts

Evie is aspiring to be an actress and moves to London from Ohio, to study, to live and ultimately, to act. Life gets in the way of her dreams and fifteen years later she’s a single mother, teaching instead of acting and wondering where her life went wrong.

Evie seems to be such a non-interesting character, it’s amazing that the whole book is based around her. She’s a shy little country girl in a foreign city, but then being an actress just doesn’t seem to suit her personality at all. The friend, Robbie, she’s far too much of a hypocrite to take seriously, advising Evie on anything and everything and never listening to her own advice.

Flipping between the present day and the past, it’s sometimes hard to keep up with where you are. Although there are clues if you look hard enough, and the writing is smooth and clever so it makes you feel proud when you do keep up. I like the dialogue, just enough to make the pages turn easily, but not so much it seems like a script.

It seems like a sophisticated book but without the strength of character, it ends up being a bit self-help.

Rating: 2 / 5