Book Review: All for a Story by Allison Pittman

All for a Story set on my Kindle "shelf" for a few weeks before I got around to reading it.  It started out to be really exciting, but bogged down about halfway through, and I struggled through the rest.  I hadn't read anything by Allison Pittman before, and I'm not sure that I'll try her again.  

This book is set in the 1920s mostly in Washington DC.  It's the story of Monica Bisbaine, a modern girl who wears makeup and fur coats and sneaks into speakeasies.  She writes for a local gossip paper with a pseudonym, telling about her adventures as a single woman in the city.  When the owner ad editor of the paper dies, his nephew, Max Moore, travels from California to take over the paper.  Max is a Christian and decides to rework the paper to make it more that just a gossip rag.  He finds himself falling for Monica, even though she's the wrong kind of girl in every way.  When Max challenges Monica to write a story about a local "anti-flirting club," will she open her eyes to see exactly what she has become?  Will she be able to accept Max's love?

The opening page of this novel was a real attention-grabber.  It pulled my right into the story.  There was a scene in the newspaper office with some gangsters, and a slightly steamy (especially for a Christian novel) scene in an abandoned house.  Other than that, this book was pretty scattered, and almost boring.  Several of the story lines seemed to go nowhere.  I really thought the gangster part would play a larger role in the story, but it seemed like after the confrontation in the newspaper office, that part was forgotten.  It was the same with the Anti-Flirting Club.  After it served it's purpose in the story, it was pretty much just written out.  There was very little action in this book at all.  The climax and resolution were a little disappointing.  It felt to me like the whole book never reached whatever pinnacle it was building up to. 

I didn't hate everything about it though.  I liked Monica's sauciness and whit, and her ability to stand up for herself in an age when a lot of women didn't.  I liked how Max was so protective of her.  Ms. Pittman also mentioned several books during the course of the story that sounded interesting, so I thought I might like to read them.  The characters read The Enchanted April and The Invisible Man in the story.  Having never read either of these books, I was very disappointed when she told what happened in the end of The Invisible Man.  I'm not sure if I have a reason to read it any more. 

All in all this book was okay.  Maybe some of Allison Pittman's books are better.  Maybe her other books have a clearer storyline.  Even  though I don't know if I will enjoy it, the next book in the series, called, All for a Sister looks really interesting, so, knowing me, I'll probable read it when it comes out in July!

Happy Reading!

Lyndsie

I was provided a copy of this book in exchange for this review.  All opinions are my own.