Sara Strand's Reviews > Best Laid Plans & Other Disasters

You maybe remember me reviewing another book by Amy Rivers called Wallflower Blooming at the very end of last year, so when I saw that there was a follow up, I jumped right on board! At the end of Wallflower Blooming, Gwen is elected mayor and she meets a guy and that kind of set the wheels for this book to be born.

For me, Gwen is SO hard to like, and that's probably because she's just everything I'm not. She's driven, she's bossy, she's popular, she's a go-getter. She's in a relationship with Jason which was a bit hard for me to get into at first because in the first book I got the impression Gwen was more of a "love 'em and leave 'em" type gal but relationship Gwen is what's being sold here. Things are going along swimmingly until Gwen finds herself on the verge of breaking up with Jason, being a mayor isn't as easy as she planned, former allies aren't playing along, she's feeling restless and moody, and of course there's a reason for it all- which is her own personal disaster. (And no, I'm not spoiling it though I'm certain you can guess what it is.)

The two books are certainly stand alone worthy but they are similar in that Val in the first one and Gwen in this one have complicated family history. Gwen struggles with her ability to navigate her new course because she doesn't have a terrific familial history and doesn't know if she can succeed without having a model to follow. It's a witty book (I won't go as far to call it funny, but there are moments where I had admittedly chuckled to myself), and I think a lot of female readers are going to be able to relate to it. It's a solid follow up to Wallflower Blooming, but I have to emphasize you do not need to read the first one to enjoy this one, but if you have read that one you'll enjoy visiting the characters from the book again.