Book Review | The Meeting Point by Olivia Lara

 

❝Our glasses clink together, mellow music in the background, the light slightly dimmed. This is playing out like a scene from one of my stories, isn’t it? The main characters look into each other’s eyes and realize what they really feel. There are violins and fireworks. Nope. Not going to happen... we’re the wrong characters. ❞

What would you do if somebody publishes a book detailing your birthday trip and heartbreak from a year ago?


The premise and the trope of The Meeting Point was everything I wanted. I loved the setting, a coast-village in California, which is just as stunning in pictures as it was described in the book.



Maya, the female lead, is in love with the idea of love. She is a dreamer, a storyteller and she loves to make up love stories about people she passes by on a daily basis.
However, for all her optimism, Maya does come off as complacent. There is a part of her that is stuck in a cycle and she is scared to remove herself from the rut— the daily rut of the job she doesn't like and a relationship where it feels like she is the only one is making an effort and is present.



Luckily, when she finds out that a book is being published, with the setting and events exactly on how her birthday trip panned out, she finally gets the push she was wanting. She goes back to Carmel-by-Sea — the place where she experienced exhilaration, freedom and dare I say, a taste of love — in search of the author and the mystery man who was responsible for one of the happiest days of her life.




❝ I smile and thank him again, turn around and leave. I leave this man standing there, a man I’m painfully attracted to, both physically and mentally, and a man I connect to on all possible and impossible levels. But I leave him like that and I’m incapable of saying what I wish I could because somewhere there’s this other man I’ve been looking for. A man I’ve never seen, I’ve never held hands with, kissed, laughed with, watched a sunrise or sunset with. Alisa is right; I have a talent for complicating my life like it’s nobody’s business. ❞




The Meeting Point has everything that I love in a romance. The narrative, which is predominantly in Maya's point of view, gives us moments with the love interest's point of view come forth, and I love the insight from the "other" point of view.

The angst is love and the fluff is high, but what really didn't work for me was:

1) The reader is made aware of who the love interest is within a few chapters. Ms Lara tries to confuse the reader for a moment, but it is plain-as-a-day as to who is Maya's mystery man.


2) Initially, the plot drags quite a bit, going in circles over the same thing. It takes a while to pick up, but because the writing is simple and flowing, I found myself going through the pages rather quickly.


3) I wish there was more development in the romance aspect. As I mentioned in the previous point, the plot circles over the same thing. I would have loved it if the author would have rather, had Maya and her mystery man find each other a little earlier.


Overall, The Meeting Point is a fun and light read with a guaranteed Happily Ever After.