I won’t be a nun by Michaela Francis : Book Review

Title      : I won’t be a nun

Author : Michaela Francis

Genre   : Contemporary fiction

Pages    : 301

I received this review copy in exchange for an honest review by Netgalley and Troubador.

Thank you Netgalley!!

Blurb

Everything these days is online – including how a woman is meant to meet Mr.Right. But, Sonia wonders, as she joins up to the dating app, how can someone decide simply by looking at somebody’s face that they’re the right person for her ? And as she swipes with little to no matches, her self-esteem crumbles, her confidence affected as she wonders “What’s wrong with me ?”

Past history meets present as she continues on the carousel, emotions building up and tearing down, being used and discarded like an old sweet wrapper and the crushing knowledge that she’s in her late 30’s and her clock is ticking. She needs to meet Mr.Right right now. She turns to alcohol to mask the fear that she will never find him but refuses to recognize that her crutch is crippling her – until it’s too late. As the overall pressure of society, her addiction and her own fears weighs her down, will Sonia overcome everything that is expected of her or will she succumb to her choices and live a life half-lived ?

Review

I won’t be nun is a story of Sonia and her counterpart Gregory. Sonia is a woman in her late thirties who desperately wants to settle down and start a family of her own. She meets her ex-boyfriend Gregory who dumped her a year back on whom she still has feelings. Both of them meet again and reconnects with each other. Though she is in love with her boyfriend Gregory her insecurities leads her into seeing other guys behind his back. What will happen to their relationship ? Will she keep on cheating on him ?

This is the vague storyline of this book.

First of all, the characterization of Sonia itself had a plethora of flaws, she is somebody who is extremely irritating and confusing. For the success of any book, characterization is the key thing and the author has terribly failed in it. Understanding Sonia was utterly difficult and that was because the story more or less stated only her everyday routine, it did not focus on what’s on her mind, how she feels and why she acted the way she did. And this created a large gap between the lead and the readers, this blunder did not allowed the readers to care for Sonia. If the readers doesn’t care for their leads then the book has lost its very cause. Comparatively Gregory’s characterization was portrayed in a better manner. The readers will be able to connect with him in a more personal way. He was real and relatable. His character might touch the hearts of the readers than that of Sonia’s but that wasn’t enough to make it a better book. The author has intended to tell Sonia’s side of the story and justify her acts but unintentionally she had turned the story in Gregory’s favor. It would be more appropriate to call it Gregory’s story instead of Sonia’s.

The plot was kind of repetitive, it had around eighteen chapters but only three to four chapters must’ve had something new to tell. It was extremely a very long book and has all the capability to DNF it without a second’s thought. Even the dialogues and scenes were repetitive. Every chapter starts with Sonia going on a date with Gregory or some guy, she drinks a lot, make a scene, excuse herself to the bathroom to text the other guy and end up having sex. As it keeps on coming in every single chapter it was really irritating to the core. It is neither a women fiction nor a romance because it completely lagged the essence of these genre, it can be placed under erotica but still it wouldn’t do justice to that genre also. The title and blurb will lure the readers into picking up this book but to be precise they were of zero relevance with the plot. Inapt title and blurb.

The writing style was ok but still it wasn’t good enough to keep the readers hooked up to it until the end. There was no flow in the writing and the narrative style. There was no  strong characters, solid plot or emotions. It lacked emotions and almost felt like it was story of a heartless AI. The backstories of the characters were highly inadequate and worthless. The author din’t even give a proper explanation why Gregory and Sonia broke up in the first place. There were lot of voids in the plot and they remained so until the very end.

All these issues made the book totally unreadable.

My views

I clearly did not like this book. I particularly hated Sonia’s character from the bottom of my heart. She is one characterless personality. I requested for this book from Netgalley  because the blurb and title was quite interesting but I totally regretted after picking it up. I have never fallen asleep while reading even my academics books let alone fictions but this book made sleep a numerous times for that I won’t forget this book. The only reason I forced myself into reading this book instead of DNFing it then and there was because I received it as a review copy from Netgalley and I felt it would be too harsh to stop it halfway but I would never suggest this book to anybody. This book seriously gave me mental anxiety and it had no story at all.

My rating for this book is 1 / 5 stars  🌟

Hope you guys are reading a better book than this.

Happy Reading Folks!!!

~ Meenu