Worlds Apart

Oh my word!! I’m almost speechless. The amount of antacids I needed due to the antagonist in the book, wow!! This was the first book in a while the characters got me so fired up. Disappointed it just fast forwarded there at the end - but good read over all!!

What happens when you don't know what really happened. I loved this book!!!! But I wish there was more to the ending! But still great book.

This debut contemporary romance by author Jane Crittenden is an Amazon First Read and had me invested and interested in the story for the first 15% or so of the book. The writing is actually very good (except for I/me//subject/object confusion and a bit of a problem with lie/lay tenses) and the setting New Zealand. Now who wouldn't like that?But as I continued reading, my stress levels due to exasperation kept rising and rising. WTH anyway. I have read this plot before but never written to these heights of drawn-out misunderstanding and miscommunication.The story is written in alternating NOW and THEN sections. In the THEN sections 17-year-old English girl Amy falls in love with a cute fellow student named Chris. At the same time she is also making friends, or trying to, with a prickly new girl at school named Olivia. Chris likes Amy, Amy likes Chris, and Olivia likes Chris in secret while every one thinks she is perfect for Chris's best friend.In the NOW sections, which take place 18 years later, we have a close-to-40 Amy living in New Zealand with her 17-year-old daughter Bea. Before moving to NZ all those years ago, Amy had written a letter to Chris, telling him she was pregnant. Crickets from him, so off to NZ she goes with her parents, all broken hearted, to raise her daughter as a single mother.When Chris miraculously appears in her life, on a business trip to NZ from London, he doesn't seem all that interested in knowing about Bea. Why not? What kind of callous jerk is he? So, yeah, yeah and all that. Maybe he doesn't know he is the father? Well then, tell him already, stupid Amy. But no, we have to have a dithering, dragging story that takes forever to resolve itself. All the minutia of the Chris/Amy/Olivia dynamic in the THEN sections that I confess to eventually racing through because I couldn't stand any more of these people.I disliked everyone in this story, except maybe for Amy's Kiwi best friend Shannon. I disliked the story because it made me want to throw my Kindle out the window, under a truck, or into the garbage disposer. And the squicky reveal in Chris's and Olivia's lives in London made me wonder how we could ever have a happy ending to this so-called romance. Well, everybody was happy at the end except for me. Maybe I need to work on my tolerance and forgiveness and acceptance of questionable behavior levels.I guess I'll give this 3 stars anyway because the author shows promise, writes relatively well, and could write a book I'd like to read if she figured out how much tolerance a reader should have to have for behavior of characters before enjoyment of the story fades.

The setting for this story is New Zealand, a lovely country far away and the place I'd choose to go if I had to leave my own home country. Having been to a place makes a story so much more enjoyable for me. I felt for Amy, Chris, Olivia and Paul and the might have been in their lives. The storyline was well laid out and the characters were well developed. It's amazing how parents and children can seem so far apart when it is most necessary to be close together. Jane Crittenden has done a good job in showing us how "Worlds Apart" can come closer.

HmmmmI genuinely liked this story and more so I liked that it didn’t go where I ultimately thought it would go. Sure, a lot of scenes were cut out and we didn’t get to watch the news unfurl and the aftermath or even hear Bea’s side of things, or even learn exactly how that hookup took place. But I guess, ultimately it didn’t matter. This was a story of two friends at different points in their lives and the changes that rocked their worlds.It was a solid story and I’m just mildly satisfied.

This is a first-time read for me of the author, Jane Crittenden. The story of Amy, Olivia, Chris, and Paul is so entrancing. I could not put the book down.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I grabbed my attention early and kept it. That said, some of it is very predictable and Amy’s immaturity in her relationships was annoying at times.

I don't know which was more annoying, the long drawn out plot where I wish she would just get on with it and reveal all the secrets, and/or the incorrect usage of I and me. She did not get a single one of the I's and Me's correct. almost like english is her second language. the problem with grammatical errors is that the more you see them the more you heaven forbid adopt them yourself. Both of these points have been mentioned in previous reviews so I'm not saying anything original.

This is a riveting story of love, lust, betrayal and misunderstanding. Four College students form a bond that cannot endure. Twisted events lead to a massive falling out that takes years and thousands of miles to unravel. In the end a tangled web of love is revealed and embraced.

Really enjoyed this gem of a book. Well written, with likeable characters. Really recommend. Looking forward to reading another book by this author.

I got this book for free ( thankfully), and started it with appropriate interest and enthusiasm. After 25% read, I was so frustrated with the main character and her reluctance to just “ tell the ( very obvious) truth”, that I felt like hitting her over the head with a saucepan! I couldn’t continue, so skipped to 95% read, and she still hadn’t told him!Stories set In two worlds sometimes work… this one didn’t for me. The author needs to tell the story such that interest and enthusiasm to read are maintained. It got to the point where I couldn’t have cared less about Amy, Olivia et al, nor bother to find out how it all ( hopefully) fitted together. So many other books to read… so few decades to go….

For the free book!

This is a good romantic suspense novel with two strong female characters. I liked them both very much though I probably preferred Olivia. I also thought the two time line structure worked pretty well. An enjoyable read.