BOOK REVIEW: Scozzari by Jaimie Roberts

Every once in awhile there is a book that leaves me fairly confused. Sometimes the plot is good, but the characters are unlikable; sometimes the characters are great but the plot is horrible.

One of my biggest pet peeves is authors who do not fact check or do their research when writing their stories. Don’t get me wrong, I truly admire anyone who can write a novel. However, with Google literally at the fingertips of most people, there is no excuse for having factually inaccurate plot points or settings in a book. Really, it should be an amazing thing; theoretically, a person who has never left the US could write an accurate novel set in Paris. It won’t have the same reality of someone who knows the city personally, but it is possible.

That’s what makes something like Scozzari so frustrating. At the heart of the novel, there is a good story: tattooed bad-boy and love of his life meet again after being separated for a few years. Will they or won’t they? It’s a good plot line, with a subplot involving an obviously unstable admirer and a female lead who has serious baggage to worry about. It should be a great novel.

But it takes place in Virginia, in the suburbs of DC. And the descriptions of the area are completely inaccurate. (I should know; I live near there and am in the area 5 days a week). The descriptions of college are not anything like any college in the US; they’re closer to a small high school, with the attention on the comings and goings of people and bells ringing for classes. So help me, I’m a stickler for accuracy.

There are also a lot of phrases that are clearly British references. The author tries to brush this away by saying that a character has a parent that is British, but that’s kind of ridiculous. A 19-year-old like Jez would not pick up British terms. It’s inconsistent.

That’s another point in this story: the characters often seem like they have experiences that make them much older than late teens. It’s not that teenagers can’t experience bad stuff and become adults before they should. But very often in this book, I just felt like there were inconsistencies in the characters.

End result, I liked the bones of the plot, and there was enough to keep me reading, but faulty facts and locations/institutions annoy me and take me out of the story. And don’t get me started on the thinly-veiled Hannibal Lechter reference to pigs.

Still, decent enough to give it a recommend. See my Goodreads review immediately following.

Scozzari by Jaimie Roberts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have definite mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it’s a likable story: tattooed, womanizing, bad-boy fighter is reunited with his childhood love…will they or won’t they re-kindle the romance? Throw in some past and current baggage that cause problems and it has a decent plot. The issue I have with the book is that it seems to be written by someone who does not live in the United States. There are several British terms used (bonnet for the hood of a car, snogging for kissing, etc.) even though the characters are American and live in Virginia. The writing is stilted, and it is fairly obvious that the author does not have a clear idea as to how American colleges work; the references seem more in the lines of a high school instead of a college. In addition, the amount of character background makes it seem like the characters should be much older than they are. Their experiences do not seem to fit 18 and 19-year-olds…more like early-20s. And it could have used an editor because there was a lot of exposition that could have been cut. It took too long to get to the heart of things. I’m giving it three stars for the plot itself and for some interesting characters. This review was written based on a complimentary pre-release copy.



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