REVIEW: "Click", by Lisa Becker.

Title: Click: An Online Love Story

Author: Lisa Becker

Format: Kindle Edition

Pages: 347 

Published:  March 29th 2011

Publisher: eBookit.com

My Copy: Won in a competition from Lip Gloss and Literature. 

Synopsis.

Taken from Goodreads. 

Fast approaching her 30th birthday and finding herself not married, not dating, and without even a prospect or a house full of cats, Renee Greene, the heroine of Click: An Online Love Story, reluctantly joins her best guy pal on a journey to find love online in Los Angeles. The story unfolds through a series of emails between Renee and her best friends (anal-compulsive Mark, the overly-judgmental Ashley and the over-sexed Shelley) as well as the gentlemen suitors she meets online. From the guy who starts every story with "My buddies and I were out drinking one night," to the egotistical "B" celebrity looking for someone to stroke his ego, Renee endures her share of hilarious and heinous cyber dates. Fraught with BCC's, FWD's and inadvertent Reply to All's, readers will root for Renee to "click" with the right man. 

Review

I never win anything. It's like a curse. So I was thrilled to win my copy of Click from a giveaway! It made me like the book instantly but make no mistake, there will be no bias here!

The book is written as one long email conversation between friends and strangers. Reading Click is somehow voyeuristic as it feels like you are eavesdropping on someone's personal emails. Lisa Becker does a great job with making this element of the text believable. 

I liked the premise of the book; it sounded like a light hearted read that would while away an afternoon. I was right! Well, actually, I stayed up stupidly late one night to read this from beginning to end. I read this on my iPhone so it must've been entertaining for me to put up with the night of eye strain. I only discovered the "night-reading" feature yesterday. Ho hum. 

I wondered how well-rounded the characters could possibly be given the cyber-epistolary format, but I was pleasantly surprised. The main character, Renee, was intelligent, self deprecating and easy-going. I found her easy to relate to and really wanted her to find the romance she was looking for. Don't get me wrong, there were times that I wanted to yell at my iPhone that she was being naive or ask why-oh-why she agreed to go on some of the dates that she did! Still, that was relatable too! We can all get a bit carried away and see what we want to see when it comes to the opposite (or same: whatever floats yer boat) sex. 

Renee's friends were much less rounded than she was, but I think that was to be expected. There was no realistic opportunity for lengthy description or exposition in this format, so some stereotypes had to be incorporated. Nevertheless, I think Becker succeeded admirably in this! Shelley, Renee's over-sexed friend, acted like the devil on her left shoulder, while Ashley (a.k.a Miss Priss) was like the angel on her right. They were like the two conflicting sides of Renee's nature and the conflict between them was woven nicely into the main story. 

Mark, Renee's slightly OCD partner-in-online-dating was the only character that I didn't particularly warm to. He seemed to serve less purpose than the other auxiliary characters. Still, although I don't think he added a whole lot to the book, he didn't detract from it either.

I found this book to be a light-hearted, easy read that was thoroughly enjoyable. I found it interesting how much Lisa Becker managed to weave beneath the surface of the story and by how much I had come to like Renee. 

I was thinking as I read it that the most unrealistic aspect of the email-format was that everyone's spelling and grammar was so damn good! But then, I loathe text speak so that didn't bother me at all.

Overall, this is a fun read. I think it'd be perfect for a nice, easy beach read or for a free hour or two you might have on lazy, summer evening. I recommend you check it out! 

Lx