Blog Tour Stop: Why Can't I Be You

TITLE Why Can't I Be You
AUTHOR Allie Larkin
PUBLICATION February 26th 2013 by Plume
READ March 14 to 15 2013
SOURCE From the publisher for review

At one time or another, everyone has wished she could be someone else. Exploring this universal longing, Allie Larkin follows up the success of her debut novel, Stay, with a moving portrait of friendship and identity.

When Jenny Shaw hears someone shout “Jessie!” across a hotel lobby, she impulsively answers. All her life, Jenny has toed the line, but something propels her to seize the opportunity to become Jessie Morgan, a woman to whom she bears an uncanny resemblance. Lonely in her own life, Jenny is embraced by Jessie’s warm circle of friends—and finds unexpected romance. But when she delves into Jessie’s past, Jenny discovers a secret that spurs her to take another leap into the unknown.

Let’s be honest here, the cover isn’t what sold me on reading Why Can’t I Be You. No folks, this is an elusive, practically unheard of case of me reading a blurb for a book and wanting to read it based on that. I can hear your collective gasp at the fact that I read the blurb for this book, I is growing up! I’m happy that I read the blurb and didn’t just write the book off for the cover because I did end up enjoying the novel quite a bit. Now, I can’t say that I loved it but the story was really good and had just enough to keep me reading so I could find out how it would all end.

Jenny is having a rough go; she got dumped as her boyfriend dropped her off at the airport when she was leaving to go on a business trip. To make matters worse, in the midst of all the dumping and crying he drives off with her luggage! By the time she got to her destination I think we got know know a lot about Jenny, just enough that I could completely understand her longing to be someone else at the time. This isn’t the most realistic of stories, but there is enough there for the reader to grasp onto to let their inhibitions go and just go along for the ride. Jenny was a mess and her progressively finding out that she needed to start putting herself first in the novel was really great. She was constantly doing things to make other people happy and pushing things that were important to her to the back burner.

The group of people that she finds herself in when one of them mistakes her for a long lost friend was also great. I did feel at times that the dialogue was a little over the top in their banter with one another, bordering on cheesy but I understood what was trying to be conveyed. Myra, Heather, Robbie, and Fish had themselves a little family and they served to show Jenny how people should be treating one another and that blood isn’t the only thing that means family. I loved Heather & Robbie’s relationship. They had been together so long and weren’t afraid to rib each other and be dorks in front of one another, you could really feel the love between these two. Myra was a bit too much for me, she seemed a bit too chipper and her personality always came across as over the top. She was definitely someone that I would want to punch the constant smile off of her face. No one can be that happy all the time!

The romance was sweet and completely awkward. Sweet because Fish was such a great guy and awkward because Jenny was pretending to be Jessie the whole time. But I liked that Larkin had written the story so that Jenny had incorporated so much about her life into being Jessie. Sure she was using her name, but these people had completely lost touch with her for 13 years so Jenny was able to use details of her real life to explain what she had been up to all that time.

If I had to complain about one major thing here it would be the pacing. A lot of the story felt like it was a bit dragged out and like the book could have used a bit of a page trim. I did enjoy reading the story, meeting the characters, and going on adventures with them but some of it began to feel tiring. I think all of it did serve its purpose though and had me come to really care about these people’s well beings, so at least there is a plus side. This reminded me of a plot you would see in a chick flick movie and is executed fairly well. If you are on the hunt for some good ol’ humerous and sweet chick lit, this could be the one for you!

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Allie Larkin is the internationally bestselling author of the novel Stay, and the upcoming novel Why Can’t I Be You (2013).  She lives with her husband, Jeremy, their two German Shepherds, Argo and Stella, and a three-legged cat.

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