Alex, Approximately discussion

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett is about Bailey known as “Mink” online, and “Alex”, who chat online with the common love of film. Soon after many conversations, and the feeling of a rare connection with each other, they finally want to meet face to face. However, as fate unfolds, Mink goes to live with her dad after college, and conveniently it’s the same place “Alex” lives. With the purpose of surprising him she keeps her location a secret, and starts to search around for him. Coincidentally, Bailey meets Porter, a security guard at her job, and has conflicting feelings about him. The author develops the characters very well, shown by the way the she describes Mink as an artful dodger, meaning she does not face conflict but rather escapes from it, gives the character a sense of uniqueness. Also, her past contains some rather interesting history, for example her getting shot, gave Bailey reasons for certain fears and actions, making her authentic. Porter is his very own person, as the author portrays him as a surfer dude, who has a sensitive past and scars he doesn’t show. Like how his best friend is messed up and has betrayed their friendship multiple times. As for the audience of this book, I would recommend it to people who like romance and have nothing better to do. And to mature young readers, because some of language is vulgar however it is easy to understand in general. The plot has some originality, but I thought it was cliché, because I’ve read many books before that have the same concept of online chatting, then they meet in person and don’t know it, going from enemies to lovers. The action was also very slow paced and some of them were unnecessary, and did not catch my interest 100%. For example, there were some chapters where the author would write about the characters dates, but for every date it was basically the same. There was also not enough drama till the end, and as a result I did not look forward to reading this book like others.

I love the development of Mink and Porter's relationship. It's not forced, you see them (more particularly Mink) gradually softens to Porter and appreciate him.