This book made me laugh out loud in a couple places and it made me cringe in far too many others. To say it is unevenly written is to be polite. It’s almost as if it were written by different people. In places, it reads smoothly and well, where it is easy to get so into the characters that it feels as if we are looking in through a window, like happy little voyeurs watching others get on with their interesting lives. In other places, it is rough and in need of a thorough edit. There are errors throughout the book that force the reader out of the story to look back and question what had been written previously.
There is an elevator scene where two of the main characters, the eponymous Veronica (“Ronnie”) and Finnegan (“Finn”), meet and greet. It is funny, so very laugh-worthy! But even here, errors are made – unfortunately!
In the elevator, Ronnie says, “Do you have that card that stops the elevator without setting off the alarm?” When Finn is retelling the incident he says, “Before I could do or say anything, she slipped in and asked if I had the card thingy – her words, not mine – to stop the elevator without the bells and whistles going off.”
She didn’t say “card thingy.”
Also in the elevator, after a conversation on her phone she says to Finn, “Paige disappeared. He [Hector] thinks she headed up the hill.” But when she arrives at the farm, she asks Hector what's wrong, walks into the barn, stops at Paige’s stall and frowns. Hector (re)tells her that Paige is gone. This seems to be new information; both appear to have forgotten that they had had a previous phone conversation. Additionally, when Hector calls her a brat (with affection presumably), she says her grandmother said that, too, but the grandmother didn't. So much stilted (not to mention mistaken) dialog ruins the story and makes the characters seem unreal.
Later in the book a “helio pad” at the hospital should be a “helo pad.” Helio is an aircraft manufacturer spelled with a capital H. And another inconsistency: Finn and his father are discussing some of the employees, two of which are apparently not worth much and have caused harm within the company. At that time the father appears to be in sync with his son in understanding how bad these employees are. Later, in another conversation, the father states he never suspected nor noticed the problem and wonders how long it had been going on.
A secondary character in this book, Lorna, is presented here as a character different from how she is portrayed in her upcoming book. In her own book she is a real potty-mouth who switches to the term, “monk balls,” in order to curb her swearing. In this book, she is a much more positive and sympathetic character who does not swear at all…pleasantly so.
At 41% book completion, I got tired of all the jarring inconsistencies and sped up my reading. At 47% completion, I started checking how far along I was in the book. The story got stale and repetitive. I cared about the characters, but not so much about the story.
I think this book was written too fast, perhaps as some sort of bridge from one series of books to another, “Ronnie’s Meadow?” It needed – and still needs – editing and most definitely a good proofreading. It feels rough, as if it had been written, perhaps reviewed cursorily, and then sent on its way to hapless readers everywhere. It’s an OK read, worthy of a solid “C,” or 3-stars.