Shelly, Shelly, Shelly: The main character in this book. If I could only pull her out of this book and give her a stern talking to! This girl is like so many young girls. She gets this hairbrained idea in her head after moving back home. Shelly falls back in love with her memories, like we all do when we reminisce. She suddenly can’t stop thinking about her first love.
Jonathan is Shelly’s long lost love and Elena is his new fianceé. According to Shelly, Elena is terminally perky, young, cute and annoying. I think Elena is funny and witty, but everything she seems to do and say annoys Shelly. Jonathan, noted by Shelly, doesn’t find her funny either. For instance, there’s a scene where the three of them walk by a building in Germany with a stone marker with the words “RATHAUS 1893”. Shelly giggles at the sign and says, “Rat House. Is that where they send all the scoundrels?” “No”, says Jonathan patiently. It's just annoying how the author is already trying to paint this poor picture of Elena and it just is not happening.
The author portrays Jonathan as a stand-up guy—lovable, fun, honest, and tenderhearted—when Shelly fell in love with him years ago. Suddenly, when Shelly comes back into the picture, his fianceé, whom he just proposed to and adores, is annoying him. He begins to call Shelly her private nickname and give her long looks….Grow up Shelly and Jonathan is what I want to say! This is high school immaturity.
Clouds is the 5th book in the Glenbrooke series. I read the first book Secrets, which I really did like. Toward the end of the book, the author did redeem her story. She speaks of how God will never stop trying to get us back to Him. God is with us at all times, even the hard times when He seems so far away. He is working for us, orchestrating our lives behind the scenes, and truly wants the best for us. The ending was good and redeemed these two characters who were quickly annoying me from the beginning of the book. I also liked the German history and being Lutheran, enjoyed the tidbits about Martin Luther.
It was a quick read and although there were a few parts where it grabbed my attention, it fell very short of my expectations. I do like how this book is part of a series and even though I read book 1 and now book 5, the characters and tiny town of Glenbrooke all wove together perfectly, and that's pretty darn cool!!
I think these books are geared more towards very young adults, but I am a mother of three and in my 30’s and this just didn’t hold my interest the way the first book did.
WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing group has provided me with this book complimentary for review purposes
Jeanna Noelle
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