Sweet Thing by Renee Carlino
New Adult Contemporary
April 14, 2013
Self Published

Reviewed by Tori

Favorite Quote: “The pain of losing someone is always worse when you know you could have prevented it.”

Sweet Thing is a romantic new adult contemporary that examines a young woman’s coming of age while dealing with the death of her father. Mia Kelly has come to New York to settle her father’s estate and work in his cafe. she meets struggling musician Will Ryan and her life takes a sharp turn as she struggles to reconcile her feelings for the young man and ends up learning hard lesson about life, love, and how to have faith.

While I enjoyed the premise and basic storyline of Sweet Thing, I found my dislike of Mia tainted my overall enjoyment. It didn’t help that it’s told in only her POV so no other thoughts or opinions are allowed in to offset my dislike. I found Mia to be a narcissistic, immature, snob whose opinions on people and things are not supported by her childhood. Her need for money and security were at odds with the fabulous childhood she had. Her socialite mother had a summer fling with her beatnik father and Mia was the result. Her mother left Mia’s father, went to law school, and married a young lawyer. Mia had a fabulous relationship with both her parents and spent equal amounts of time with them. The first 30% of the book reminisces on Mia’s childhood and asserts all this in a forward fashion.

When she meets Will, we see her neurosis rear its ugly head. Will is a struggling, very talented musician who lives breathes, and loves music. It’s in his soul. Though he seems to be wandering through life, he actually has concrete plans towards the future. Will falls for Mia but she demands only friendship and Will accepts that. As they get to know one another better, Mia sees Will working his butt off towards his dream but the path he takes irritates Mia. She doesn’t understand why he refuses to take the quickest path to stardom and her catty remarks gain momentum. She reminded me of a friend I used to have that would act happy for you while telling you in detail every little thing that what was wrong with you. When Will’s talent catches the attention of a major label, Mia is ecstatic. But when Will refuses to allow the label to change certain aspects of his songs (the lyrics) Mia’s catty remarks take on a cutting edge and she strikes out in a very ugly fashion, hurting Will and their relationship.

It’s at that point I threw up my hands and thought to myself, “What a bitch.” Will leaves her and Mia is astonished that for once, Will doesn’t come crawling back. In fact, he wants nothing to do with her, period. Mia also soon finds herself on the outs with their mutual friends. The results are temper tantrums and self pity parties that only further my low opinion of her. When she hits rock bottom and begins to climb her way out, we see a little difference but I wasn’t convinced she had really learned anything.

I enjoyed the secondary characters and Will, much more. Well developed vivacious personalities who didn’t pull any punches and told Mia like it was. The glimpses into the past paint a vivid interesting picture of Mia and her father. I think I would have enjoyed grabbing a cuppa joe in his cafe.

I don’t think we are suppose to like Mia, however for me, the author did too good of a job. While it seems I am one of the few who didn’t love this book to pieces, the author’s voice is compelling enough that I would probably read more from her.

Rating: D+

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