Book Review: One Less Problem Without You by Beth Harbison

Hi Happy Wednesday.

This is my first book review here on My Jamaican Vignettes.

 Importing of the book blog was a success. I am still reformatting, editing and deleting posts, so we are still in a period of transition, but I hope that this can be completed really soon (my most optimistic estimation is by this Sunday).

So today’s book review is on Beth Harbison’s One Less Problem Without You.

I received this book from NetGalley and the publishers’ St. Martin’s Press for free, in exchange for my honest review.

A very weird thing occurred when I selected this book, the Goodreads summary is totally incorrect (and Goodreads has become my first stop for all book related information, reviews, descriptions and summaries).

So I started reading with certain expectations on the characters and the plot and was completely thrown by what I was actually reading.

One Less Problem Without You is the story of three women,  Prinny, Diana and Chelsea Prinny is the owner of  a store called Cosmos, where she sells metaphysical themed items and does psychic and tarot card readings. Chelsea is the shop assistant and telephone psychic as well as a struggling actress. Then there is Prinny’s sister-in-law, Diana, who later joins the store as their resident mixologist.

This is my first book by Beth Harbison and I really liked her writing style, it was clear and descriptive and simple.

Now I didn’t love this book. It was a good, entertaining and easy read.  It leads more towards women’s literature with issues of domestic violence, women’s independence, sexual violence, struggling millennial women, self-love and self esteem with a chick lit spunkiness thrown into the mix.

Interspersed in the novel are flashback chapters that slowly reveal the history of Leif (the main problem in the story). Leif is Diana’s husband and Prinny’s brother. These flashback chapters are why I only gave the book two stars on Goodreads and NetGalley.

I am assume that the flashback chapters were intended to give depth of Leif’s character and show him as the bad guy, but instead they took away from the main narrative. I wanted to learn and see more of Prinny, Chelsea and Diana. I loved the stories of Diana, Prinny and Chelsea. They are such great characters but I feel that they were overshadowed by the alternate flashback chapters.

Has anyone read One Less Problem Without You? What were your thoughts? What about other Beth Harbison books? Any recommendations?

Thanks for reading and connecting.

Be sure to see The Stories of Chantel DaCosta category for other book reviews and my story stories.

See you Sunday.