Beginner's Greek by James Collins

Beginner's Greek
by James Collins
Pub. Date: May 2009
Genre: Fiction
464pp

Synopsis from BN.com:
Is love at first sight possible or just an old-fashioned romantic idea? And what if, to further complicate things, you meet the love of your life and then lose her phone number? Then what if, after the impossible happens and you find her again, she's now about to marry a roguish lothario who is also your best friend? The complications don't end there for Peter Russell, the winning hero of James Collins' charming, generous, and romantic first novel. Part modern-day Jane Austen, part Tom Wolfe, Beginner's Greek is a romantic comedy of the highest order, with characters who are perfectly, charmingly real as they swerve and stumble from fairy tale to social satire and back again.

Why I Picked It:
I made a vow to read light and easy novels for the summer. This is another find on the Costco book tables that I purchased several weeks ago. It sounded like the perfect book to start with, and written from the male perspective instead of the typical chick lit (whiny) female perspective.

My Review:
This is not an original story, but I got sucked into this one from the first page just the same. Immediately, I was sure this was going to be a revisit to Serendipity (think John Cusack), and maybe there were some similarities, but who can resist a romantic error-filled quest for love against all odds?

Peter meets Holly on a cross-country flight from New York to Los Angeles, and they immediately have a spark. She writes her number on a page from a Thomas Mann book so they can have dinner while in LA, and then he regretfully loses it. Heartbroken over the loss of the woman he "knows" was his soul-mate, he carries on. Years later, he runs into Holly again, but she is now the girlfriend of his best friend, Jonathan. Too much the gentleman, Peter, instead, forms a friendship never daring to cross that line and watches as the woman of his dreams marries his philanderer/writer best friend. Peter seeing no hope to have Holly decides to instead marry Charlotte whom he does love, though he is not in love with her, and on his wedding day a series of hits and misses begins that snowball and entangle Peter and Holly as they both secretly hope to find a way to be together.

I know I'm beginning to sound like a broken record raving over all the books I am reading, but endure my love affair. This book was easy, fun, addicting, and I found myself wanting to stay up really late just so I could find out what was going to happen next.

But, I will be honest. It wasn't a perfect novel, and I did find myself annoyed with some of the changes in structure. Where Collins started out telling the story from Peter's 1st person perspective, about halfway through, he started telling it from some of the other supporting character's perspective. This did work to move the storyline along and to pull all the pieces together, it was always Peter that I wanted to hear more from. Also, there was a strange "perfection" to each character, even with their stated flaws. With the exception of Charlotte's dad, everyone essentially was "good" and respectfully viewed and approached each other that way. The biggest life crisis a character faced was related to worry about finding love or having money. And throughout the novel, there was an abundance of both. Well, I should mention that Peter does have an evil maniacal boss who is out to destroy him, but that part was just comedy (cereal box tops are the next currency? Really?)

This is James Collins debut novel, and yes, I will be on the lookout for more by him to see how his writing style develops. Very entertaining!!