“When Vanessa meets Tony on a camping trip in Hickory Run State Park, she's not looking for love. She's already engaged to Collin, a man who checks everything on her list: smart, handsome, and a Christian.
When, against Collin's wishes, she signs up for a Biblical Greek class, Tony inspires her, and a deep friendship develops between them. As she finds her voice, she begins to yearn for a different future than the one she had planned. Are her doubts just cold feet or is she about to marry the wrong man?”
Series: Book #3 in the “Romance in the Park” series. Review of Book #1 Here and Book #2 Here! Series is not connecting and can be read in any order.
Spiritual Content- A devotional at the end of the book has 1 Corinthians 13:4-5 quoted and a prayer; Scriptures are mentioned, quoted, discussed, & remembered; Prayers (including asking for a sign); Talks about God, testimonies, & Greek meanings of Scriptures; 'H's are capital when referring to God; Vanessa feels like she doesn’t have a testimony to share because of growing up in a Christian family, but Tony encourages that one of the greatest tests is the test of time; Many mentions of Greek origin words from the Bible & their meanings; Mentions of God, Jesus, & Christians; Mentions of sharing the gospel & testimonies; Mentions of Bibles, Bible reading, & Bible studies; Mentions of churches, church going, services, groups, teaching children in a ministry, & pastors; A few mentions of the Holy Spirit; A few mentions of those & events in the Bible; A couple mentions of speaking in tongues and prophesying; A couple mentions of sins; A mention of a baptism; A mention of feeling spiritually heavy because of a person.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a form of ‘dumb’, a ‘geez’, and seven ‘stupid’s; Eye rolling & Sarcasm; Vanessa says a handful of lies to her fiancé to avoid conflict with him; Mentions of lies & lying; Mentions of alcohol & a bar; Mentions of a winery (for a wedding venue); Mentions of tattoos (positively, including Vanessa and her friend teasing/talking about getting tattoos); A couple mentions of poo & needing to pee; A mention of a brain fart;
*Note: Vanessa’s friend asks if her fiancé laid his hands on her or assaulted her (he did not); Vanessa’s feelings get hurt by her fiancé’s words; Vanessa goes to Comicon with a friend and there’s mentions of people in cosplays of anime characters and fantasy creatures like faeries, elves, and aliens; A couple mentions of movies/TV shows that are implied but not named (Star Trek & My Big Fat Greek Wedding); A mention of Cub Scouts; A mention of a panel at convention about the “history of feminism in the fantasy genre”.
Sexual Content- A hand/fingers kiss, a forehead kiss, four cheek kisses, a not-detailed kiss, and two barely-above-not-detailed kisses; Remembering a kiss (barely-above-not-detailed); Some Touches, Embraces, & Hand holding (barely-above-not-detailed); Blushes; Noticing (not-detailed); Twelve ‘babe’s; Vanessa’s fiancé offers her a massage which she says no to because “a massage would turn to hugging would turn to kissing. Massages came with expectations”; Vanessa’s friends tell her that if she’s going to “look around” at other guys to do it before her wedding (adding “no looking after”; Vanessa is bothered by her friend joking about this, wondering if her friend meant that she thought Vanessa looked at other guys or if it means she should because Collin isn’t the best choice for her); Vanessa’s fiancé doesn’t like her to be with other guys or talk to them (thinking she will choose someone else over him or she’s talking to another guy because she’s attracted to him); Vanessa hasn’t told Collin about her friendship with Tony because she doesn’t think he would like her being friends with a guy and *Spoiler* she calls Tony to say that they can’t be friends anymore (which was her decision) to which he confesses to her about liking her and she deletes his number *End of Spoilers*; *Spoilers, but about manipulation* Vanessa realizes towards the end that Collin, her fiancé, is manipulating her because of how she tip-toes around him when she brings up another guy and has made her guilty for not doing anything wrong (as if she was capable to do some great evil thing towards him that she wasn’t aware of and she realizes he keeps her on a short leash because he was afraid); She thinks for a moment about cheating on him since she’ll earn a guilt trip from him just for talking to another guy, so she “may as well do something to deserve it”, but does not; She compares his actions to 1 Corinthians 13 and is mad that he doesn’t trust her despite her always showing him love; She tells him that she wants to break-up and he wants her to pray about it, but she knows that praying won’t change her mind because it would take an “act of God” to get him to be less self-centered and put her needs before her own; They break up and she writes unmailed letters to him to vent her emotions *End of Spoilers*; Mentions of dating, dates, boyfriends/girlfriends, break-ups, & exes; Mentions of cheating; A few mentions of Vanessa’s friend who got married to her boyfriend right out of high school because she was pregnant (she notes that this was before they were Christians); A couple mentions of being hit on; A couple mentions of cute guys; A mention of Collin being concerned about the “young studs” in a teen group following Vanessa around like puppies; Some love, & the emotions;
*Note: Vanessa and her friend go shopping for panties and bras (her friend says that just because no one can see them doesn’t mean they have to be boring; Vanessa gets excited about it and wearing something special being like “walking around with a secret”; Vanessa tries on a few different bras in the changing room; A mention of one having a lot of support and it being “uplifting”); A mention of the words homosexual and heterosexual coming from the Greek words for “same” and “different”.
-Vanessa
1st person P.O.V. of Vanessa
167 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
It should be noted that I am so not a camping person. I had enough of that in my five years in American Heritage Girls, so I didn’t personally love those parts—but those that love camping will probably will like reading about it! It’s just not my thing.
Based on the backcover, I was a little nervous about potential emotional cheating elements, but there wasn’t and not only was I grateful for that, it was all handled well. Vanessa realizes that she is spending too much time talking to the other guy (Tony) instead of her fiancé (Collin) and knows her fiancé wouldn’t like it, but it never crossed into her thinking anything more than Tony was just a good guy. For her, it felt like a platonic friendship and I thought so too.
I have to admit that I didn’t really care for Vanessa for the first part of the book. I didn’t like how she wouldn’t communicate with her fiancé about wanting to unplug for her camping trip with her friends and was willing to lie to him about there not being time to call him when there was, she just didn’t want to call. I know their relationship was supposed to be…maybe not a red flag, but show that it’s probably not the best fit for either of them; it still bugged me though. That said, I didn’t like her with Collin either, so perhaps that was part of it. Vanessa figuring out that something was wrong about their relationship was very natural for the story and it made sense.
I’ve never really been interested in the Greek language, but as a foreign language learner, I did find all of those parts interesting and I liked the joy it gave Vanessa.
This plot wasn’t quite what I was expecting (and neither was that ending), but I liked it and thought it was paced well for the short length of the book. This series has been very different from the normal Christian Fiction contemporary romance book, but they’ve all had unique elements and good faith content.
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
*I received this book for free from the Author for this honest review.
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