Book Review: We Never Asked for Wings by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Becki's Rating: ★★★★☆

Title: We Never Asked for Wings
Author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date of Publication: August 18, 215
Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
Page Count: 320
Goodreads: Click
Amazon: Associates Link
Recommended? Yes
Similar Books: None (Yet)
My Rating: ★★★★☆

I loved this book. I've just finished it and I'm still reeling in the after-glow of having read an excellent book, trying to put together the last of my thoughts, which are oddly mixed. There are many things that I love about this book, but there are just as many things that make me shake my head with disappointment. This one gets four stars from me purely based on the enjoyment factor, but I encourage my readers to appreciate that this book took me an entire eight days to finish, with steady reading.

I'm not going to give you a summary of this book, as the story defies anything that I could put into a brief summary of the novel, but I will tell you that the summary attached to Goodreads and Amazon (and of course the dust jacket) is insufficient to describe this novel.

Against my own custom, I want to begin with the things that I didn't like about this book, so that I can finish this review strong, as I do recommend this book to my readers.

The thing that I found the most frustrating about this book -- and the thing that made it take so long for me to finish the book to be honest with you -- is that it is very character driven. While there is a plot to this novel, it is loosely held together by the characters, and it seems to exist primarily in order to support the characters, rather than the characters supporting the plot. I'm not fond of this type of book because I want more from a story. 

Because of this, the story is rushed, coming together only in the last third of the novel, which isn't enough time to bring together all of the pieces. The romantic story between Letty and the two suitors is as rushed as it is forced. 

If it wasn't for this one thing, this would have been a five-star book in spite of the fact that it is character-driven.

Maybe it's because I'm not colored by The Language of Flowers, as I haven't read it yet. I felt that this book was substantive in terms of its characters, but it could have done more for its story, especially had it been considerably less rushed. 

The prose of this novel is beautiful, and the characters are so well-formed that they feel like people I might have met during my lifetime. Diffenbaugh successfully illustrates what it is to be a teenager struggling with coming-of-age issues and young love, and she made me connect with the characters she created for this novel. This is the type of book that inspires me. 

But on the other hand, it is not the type of book that keeps me reading and turning page after page because its story was lacking.

Definitely a book that I would recommend, but not one that I will likely read again. That being said, I will be reading The Language of Flowers.