What I learned from Jamie...

Friday Night Jamie - Bren Christopher

'Friday Night Jamie' was my second read by this author and even though it wasn't as good as I had hoped. Interestingly enough upon further investigation I discovered this was in fact the author's first book and that the book I read previously was in fact one of her later efforts. Which for me speaks well for the author as I found 'Second Chance Sam' to be a much better read, rating 4 stars from me versus the 2.5 that 'Friday Night Jamie' earned.

 

Try as I might I just couldn't fully connect with this story. Jamie at times seemed to grate on my nerves and in spite of a plethora of bad guys and believe me there were enough of them.  

There was a minimum of 7 willingly bad guys and 2 who were good guys blackmailed into doing bad things.

(show spoiler)

You would think it would have been harder to figure out who was who and what was what but no sadly when I got to the end of the book I discovered that all my guesses had been correct much to my disappointment because I really, really wanted to be wrong and find out that the author had woven a better mystery than I had thought.

 

Now back to the MCs. James or as he's known on Friday nights, Jamie. Try as I might I just couldn't like him. I didn't hate him, I just didn't like him the way I usually do a main character. At the end of it all I was glad that things worked out for him and Matt, but that was mostly because I liked Matt. Again I like the character of Matt, didn't love him or adore him and I wasn't left at the end of the story feeling like I wanted more, which for me is a sure sign of how much I like a book. 

 

So while this wasn't a fantabulously amazing read for me and I have no real desire to revisit the world of Jamie and Matt. I will continue to read Ms Christoper's books because what this has shown me is that as an author she is growing and improving her craft. She cares about the quality of what she puts out for people like me to read and as a reader that means a lot.