It has been a while since I last posted a review, but I just didn’t feel like it. I have been slacking in both reading and reviewing last week and I think this little accidental break is what I needed for a bit. I found myself enjoying reviewing less and less because I wanted to write the perfect review and I kind of forgot that it’s a blog and I don’t have to write that perfect review. Preferably not actually. I noticed that the structure I set myself for reviews was forcing me into a straitjacket which made these feel quite “stiff” in my own eyes. So, I need to remember to losen up a bit and write whatever pops up into my mind. No matter if it’s the perfect review or not. Oh well, enough of the yapping, it’s time for my review for today!

It has been years since I read my first Mariana Zapata book, which was – probably like for most people – From Lukov, With Love. I had a good time with it, I remember enjoying my reading experience and finding it a pretty fast read. Admittedly, I hardly read romance at the time, so I was fairly new to the genre and hadn’t read enough to notice certain flaws. I was planning on reading other books by this author, but it didn’t happen. One of these books was The Wall of Winnipeg and Me, which has been on my TBR for years now. I prioritized it by putting this book on my seasonal TBR for this spring and see the result! As I really enjoyed earlier mentioned book, I had high expectations for this one and therefore expected to enjoy it just as much.

About the book

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata
Published by Independently published on March 1, 2016
Pages: 469
ISBN: 9780990429241
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Vanessa Mazur knows she’s doing the right thing. She shouldn’t feel bad for quitting. Being an assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to the top defensive end in the National Football Organization was always supposed to be temporary. She has plans and none of them include washing extra-large underwear longer than necessary. But when Aiden Graves shows up at her door wanting her to come back, she’s beyond shocked. For two years, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg couldn’t even find it in him to tell her good morning or congratulate her on her birthday. Now? He’s asking for the unthinkable. What do you say to the man who is used to getting everything he wants?

My review

Unfortunately, I was very underwhelmed by this character driven novel. I found the characters quite lacking, so that’s not a good basis to start on. This story is about Vanessa and Aiden who are definitely the grumpy x sunshine couple. They started of as boss and employee, but when Vanessa leaves her job, Ayden realizes what he’s missing. So, here’s where the forced proximity comes in. This is a trope I’ve seen a lot of lately and is one of my least favourite romance tropes. To me, it falls under the same category as fake dating, and I avoid books with this trope like the plague.

Furthermore, the character development felt a bit blunt to me. It was supposed to be there, but I didn’t feel it, didn’t see it. The story is solely told from Vanessa’s POV and besides the fact she’s finally choosing her own happiness, she doesn’t show any growth. Same for Aiden, unless you count opening up more as such. Because of this lack of growth and the tropes of this novel, there was no chemistry for me and the romance was quite unbelievable. The side characters weren’t too interesting either. Mind you, I still enjoyed them, but I wasn’t able to relate to them or get invested in their story.

As the plot is subordinate to the characters in this book, it is moving slowly. This is logical as we take the minimal character development into account, but for a romance, I expected more. Everything felt so forced and unbelieveable to me, it wasn’t intriguing anymore. There were parts in this novel that sparked my curiosity, but overall, it was quite disappointing. The plot is moving forward very slowly and nothing much is happening in the romance. The dynamics between our main characters take a drastic turn in the final chapter, but it’s so incredibly late that it again feels forced. The writing style is fine for me and therefore I was able to finish this book quite quickly. However, I sometimes struggled to pick it back up after putting it down.

The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata didn’t meet my expectations. Although it’s an enjoyable read, I found the characters poorly written. This is such unfortunate as they are the most important part of a romance novel. Because I found them quite uninteresting and lacking growth, the chemistry wasn’t there for me which makes the romance quite unbelievable. Furthermore, the romance itself was unintriguing either, as there is not much happening overall. Some parts of the book sparked my curiosity, only for the story to go downhill afterwards. I still want to try other books by this author as many people seem to enjoy them.