Purple Hearts

I’ve fallen in love with Luke and Cassie. Ms. Wakefield absolutely fantastic writing for your first adult novel. Keep ’em coming. I didn’t want to let Cassie and Luke go….. I didn’t want it to end…. I want more!

I am so pissed. My goal was to not read any 2-star books during 2017 and even though this wasn’t my first, it’s still another one to add to the list. Because, really, it’s just bad. Props to the writing, which was fine, but otherwise I’m struggling to come up with a redeeming thing to say about this book.

Cassie: Didn’t like her, didn’t feel like I knew her, didn’t care what happened to her. She’s not a bad person, she’s just not really interesting. She got fired, she got diabetes (dietitian rant about this later), she worked in a bar, she is a musician, she gets married, and that’s about it. There was nothing vibrant or compelling about her.

Luke: I liked Luke. His struggle with addiction was interesting and I thought many of his actions rang true. The whole menacing ex-dealer thing drove me crazy and I though the resolution of that part of the story (no spoilers) was so unrealistic.

The Romance: Could two people have less chemistry? I honestly don’t know if it’s possible. I kept waiting for the moment I would want them to get together and it just never came. Poor Luke needs to get his life together and then find someone a hell of a lot more interesting than Cassie.

Diabetes: WAS THERE ANY RESEARCH DONE HERE?? I saw that the author is from Golden Valley, MN, seriously, if you want to correct this story or ever want to write about diabetes again I know many dietitians and certified diabetes educators in the Cities who you can speak to because you really screwed this up. First off, why type 2? It’s very unusual for a healthy 20-something to get type 2 diabetes. Perhaps she really had type 1? Type 1 can develop much more rapidly. Someone with type 2 diabetes develops it over many, many years, they don’t just flip a switch and have it in a month or two. Second, why was she always having all of these low blood glucose episodes? People with type 2, unless they’re on insulin, do not have low blood sugar problems (and it was said that Cassie wasn’t on insulin). People with diabetes have faulty insulin meaning the sugar is staying in their blood giving them HIGH BLOOD GLUCOSE READINGS, not low. Third, how the hell was she on seven medications? That’s insane. I’ve met a lot of diabetics and I’ve never encountered one (even ones with very poor control) on seven medications. Are there even seven diabetes medications? I will ask an endocrinologist. Fourth, when her diet was described she was eating a lot of carbs and seemed to be avoiding meats? And let the poor girl have some cake from time to time. I don’t know a single RD or CDE who says someone with diabetes can never have sweets.

Even if you’re not someone trained in nutrition like I am, stay away from this story. Not only will you get a totally unrealistic view of diabetes, you’ll waste your time reading a crappy story.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings. Not sure I cared for Cassie. Actually, I did not like her most of the time. For most of the book she seemed a bit insensitive to others around her and most of the time all she cared about was herself. Yes, the marriage was one of convenience so she could get the finances to take care of her medical needs while pursuing her music dreams, but damn, once he gets hurt, he more or less becomes an inconvenience to her. Luke though, I liked him. I looked forward to his chapters as the author would switch from one character to the other throughout the story. He agreed to marry her because he has issues of his own that a marriage could financially help him with. He tried to get away from his dark past but unfortunately, it didn’t want him to stay away for too long and it affects those around him again BUT, he still tries. Amazingly, at the end, I actually believed Cassie changed a bit and was curious if the two could really make it.

My rating? 3 out of 5 stars. But I’d definitely give Tess Wakefield another try and read another story. If you enjoy contemporary romance (without much romance), you might like PURPLE HEARTS. Go for it. 🙂

Tess Wakefield pens a modern day love story in PURPLE HEARTS, highlighting many of the problems Americans face todayaccess to healthcare, cost of medical care, issues with veterans benefits, mental health, and addiction. While her efforts to draw from real-life issues are admirable, Purple Hearts is fraught with quality issues in terms of the writing, character development, believability, and pacing.

Cassie is diagnosed with Type II Diabetes towards the beginning of the novel. The medical bills that she amassed as a result are so crippling that she decides the only way she can overcome them is not to get a second job, despite being college educated and an experienced paralegal, but to defraud the U.S. Government and marry a soldier for his health insurance and extra spousal benefits. Luke has his own financial woes as a result of pissing off his former friends who are drug dealers and decides this is a marvelous idea.

When I read the synopsis and saw that diabetes was the culprit of the heroines medical costs, I envisioned that maybe this person went into diabetic coma and was hospitalized for a long period of time, while doctors worked to get her diabetes under control. (I had a client who had to be placed in a medically-induced coma as a result of complications from type II diabetes) A health problem in this realm of severity would have made the case for the cost of medical bills from diabetes to be unmanageable. This, however, was not what happened.

Its noted that the author did consult with people who suffered from type II diabetes, so as to portray the illness in a real way. But I didnt find this particular choice of illness to make a whole lot of sense. There are so many other illnesses the author (or rather Alloy Entertainment since this company came up with the concept of this novel) could have chosen to use in this novel to make this a little bit more believable, especially in the area of cost.

I cant imagine that Cassies medical bills were in the arena of completely debilitating. Im positive my student loans are more burdensome than this. Cassies medical bills are as follows: an ambulance bill, medical testing for diabetes (this is a blood test), a short hospital stay, medications, and diabetes testing supplies. In America, these bills are extremely costly but couldnt she have made payment arrangements? Well yes, but Cassie refuses to get a second job so that she can fulfill her dream of becoming a successful singer.

Cassie is not very sympathetic or likable character. She and Luke are on opposite ends of the spectrum here. Luke is the more conservative and traditional guy, while Cassie is much more progressive a self-described feminist. But doesnt marrying a guy solely for his monetary support go against her feminist principles? Aside from that point, her choices alone made her come across as selfish and lazy.

As if readers could forgot that Cassie has diabetes (because she brings it up all the time) there is a large portion of an entire chapter during which Cassie shares all the food that shes eating. Even when Luke is meeting with someone about his medical problems, she makes it a point to tell the other person that she has diabetes for no reason.

One thing I noticed right away is the poor writing quality. I believe the author wanted to create a quirky heroine who was unapologetically herself but her inner dialogue was terrible. In an attempt to, I guess, foreshadow the impending diabetes diagnosis, the author has Cassie talking about her relationship with her gut throughout the whole book.

We had to be on the same team, my gut and I, because for the past few months itd been off, cranky. I pictured it as a wise, old, talking anthropomorphized object, like a character in an animated movie. What my gut communicated was usually limited to things like I do not care for these Flamin Hot Cheetos, or Good effort with the bean soup, Im going to expand and sit with this for a while.

My gut flared again, and I avoided hitting the bumper of the Honda in front of me by an inch. I wanted to slam my head against the steering wheel.

The mass had spread through my whole body, throbbing dizzying me. This happened a lot. Like, twice a day, thereabouts. Hence the gut intimacy.

Luke has his own narrative quirks when he talks about being on Oxycontin versus being sober, cloud head and regular head respectively. I get where the author was going with this, but this was just another example of the awkward writing style.

I called it cloud head. My cloud head was carefree, dumb, sweet, like a kid. Cloud head didnt want too many details. Cloud head knew that everything was going to be okay. My regular head couldnt do that. My regular head would get caught up in everything that could go wrong, and lash out. I needed cloud head for the tough times, so that they looked more simple and nice than they actually were

The dialogue in this novel is perhaps some of the most stilted and unnatural dialogue I have ever read. Some of it made me cringe.

Wanna get turnt?

Or my favorite line.

I want to get sloppy.
Chyeah, Davies said. Im in.

Since the author addresses so many hot topics in this novel, she has a lot of ground to cover in a short amount of time. There are several passages that are pure information dumping sections in the middle of the story and that read like a public service announcement.

For those curious about whether the love story makes up for the writing quality, let me tell you that it does not. These characters are barely together romantically in this novel. Even when Luke comes back from Afghanistan, Cassie is dating someone else. The author doesnt spend page time building the relationship between Cassie and Luke in a way that translates to the reader. There is so much telling instead of showing that it prevents the reader from developing any strong feelings towards the characters or their love story at all. With Luke coming back from war in the way that he did, that plot point alone could have been used in a great way to beautifully shape a foundation for their relationship. Instead, the author gives us no build-up at all, and at the very end both mysteriously decide they love each other and then the novel ends.

The publisher has categorized this book as Womens Fiction but honestly it reads more as a contemporary romance. Cassie doesnt go through any metamorphosis of the heart or a huge character change. The only thing that changed is the fact that she fell in love with Luke and therefore, is no longer committing fraud on the government.

* Thanks to Emily Bestler books for providing me with an early copy for review.

I originally only bought the book because my favorite actress sofia carson is going to play cassie in a movie adaption. my expectations weren’t really high as I just wanted to know the plot. but this book was so good I’ve read the whole thing in 2 days. the characters cassie and luke have very real struggles and passions and following their thoughts and emotions through the first person narrative was very interesting, I couldn’t put the book away. there are a few plot twist I wasn’t expecting, so there was not a boring moment while reading. I already recommended the book to my best friend and I can only suggest whoever is reading this, that it is very worth reading.

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