looking for ward by laurel osterkamp

Written by Darlyn At Sunday, April 24, 2011
Title: Looking For Ward
Author: Laurel Osterkamp
Pages: 80 (pdf)
Series: Novella
Published: August 22nd, 2008
Rating: 3.5/5
Source: Author

Summary (Goodreads):

What if your love disappeared and your loyalties changed? Would you change your life, or would it change you? In Looking For Ward a bride-to-be confronts these questions as she faces the ultimate threat to her wedding plans. Meet Chloe Langley, a wannabe jewelry designer and spoiled Daddy’s girl. Chloe is used to getting what she wants, and for months she’s been planning the dream wedding for herself and her finance, Ward. Then, thirty days before their wedding day, Ward disappears, leaving only an e-mail, instructing her not to look for him. In the month leading up to her wedding, Chloe must decide if and how she should find Ward, whom to trust, when to let go, and what to do about their wedding plans. The story is told through a series of e-mails between Chloe, her best-friend Bethany, and Ward’s best man Owen. As the month goes on and the wedding date gets closer, secrets come out that change the lives of everyone involved. In the process Chloe discovers the true meaning of love and loyalty, and finds that she’s capable of more than she ever thought possible. Looking For Ward is a wonderful story about what it means to believe in love, and to believe in yourself.

My Two Cents:

The novella was a fun read, as I feel like a total bad person, reading other people's emails. The email format writing style and a little bit narrative part from the characters really work. It started when Ward suddenly disappeared and left Chloe with full of questions when the wedding is in a month. I felt awful and sorry for her. Her best friends Bethany is likeable, she gave Chloe obvious advices and very rational to reasons why was Ward chicken out and make fool of Chloe like that. There was a conflict involved and despite of that, other truth about lost feelings and to come clean about it. I found the book very clever even though the cheesiness of it was there. A relationship that start with a lie will never work, same goes here in the story. Even when you love your lover very much, you will find it very difficult to give another chance to start over when you found out he's lying about himself and you don't even think you know him at all. This is the feeling that I got when I read the novella. I love Chloe, she's strong, sometime freaking out but that is fine, and brave enough to make a wise decision even though she's broken hearted in the end. I felt sorry for Ward, even though he loves Chloe, he don't love her enough to trust her to share his darkest secret, it brings frustration to Chloe because he lets his problem dragged until they are about to get married. Owen on the other hand wins all, well, he deserves it even though he kept his love to himself for years. All in all, the novella is fun, page turner and I really feel connected with the characters nevertheless of it was written in emails format. Read it and you'll find it okay.

About the Author

Laurel Osterkamp originally wrote this 22,000-word novella for fans of her chick-lit novel, Following My Toes. Those readers received a new installment of the story by e-mail each day during the month of March 2007. Now this 2008 Kindle edition offers Looking For Ward to the general public. Laurel Osterkamp has been a comedy writer for Minneapolis performance groups over the last seven years. She currently teaches creative writing to high school students, and lives in Minneapolis with her husband and son. Download here.

4 comments:

  1. You got me really interested now, why did he leave, does he come back? I wanna know :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just happened to do a google search (seriously, I hadn't done one on this book in FOREVER). Anyway, I found your review. I'm so thrilled that you read it, enjoyed it, and are spreading the word. Thanks for the PR!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've never read a book written in e-mail format so would be interested in tryin it.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the comments! XOXO ;p

 

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