Canadian Boyfriend
Canadian Boyfriend is shockingly weighty for the usually lighthearted Jenny Holiday, but heavy subject matter looks good on her. The book is just thoughtful enough to keep the winter chill away, but is also a completely trenchant character study. There’s a couple of quirks that keep this from reaching DIK status, but it’s a very good novel.
As a teenager, Aurora – Rory – Evans once bumped into a handsome hockey player at the Mall of America. She proceeded to use him as a convenient out for every social occasion, turning him into her Canadian boyfriend. She’s never going to see him again, so why not?
Decades later, Rory’s coping with her failed ballet career and recovering from an eating disorder. She teaches young hopefuls, and among her young students is Olivia Kowalski – the daughter of Mike Martin, the very hockey player whom she once pretended was her Canadian boyfriend. Olivia’s mother passed away in a car crash seven months before, leaving Olivia and Mike devastated. When Rory and Mike forge a relationship, Rory is forced to keep Mike from finding out she’s been lying to her family and friends for years about him being her Canadian boyfriend all those years earlier.
Canadian Boyfriend is sweet, but redolent of the grieving process. It has a strong romance but is very honest about what it’s like to recover from an eating disorder and paints a very strong portrait of what it’s like to live with heavy burdens but still seek out joy. It’s just not as lighthearted as the blurb makes it out to be.
I admired and liked Mike and Olivia and Rory in equal amounts, and the romance between Mike and Rory is warm and sweet. I especially appreciated how hard Rory works to shield her students from their momager friends. It’s very gratifying to watch everyone grow in the story, and for those worried that the main conflict might be a little too silly, it ultimately ends up being about Mike having to move beyond his wife’s death.
But when it comes to that plot point, the pacing does feel a little off, and it feels as though Mike is moving on a tad too quickly. And I don’t know why, but the book has Rory continuously refer to Mike by his full name. Even after they’ve had sex, he’s Mike Martin to her! It pulled me out of the story at several crucial junctures.
Yet Canadian Boyfriend is still romantic, tender, and well worth reading.
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Probably my biggest issue with the one Jenny Holliday trilogy I read was that she brought up a lot of serious issues but wrote silly, lighthearted books with them, so I’m kind of intrigued by this change in direction, even though this specific book doesn’t really appeal to me.
It’s interesting to me how she’s kind of stayed on this tack; this is really more of the same in a way, but she does I think especially take the eating disorder part of Rory’s story more seriously than she has before.
I was lucky enough to get an audio ARC of this (both narrators are so very good), and really liked it. Still, Rory referring to Mike by his full name EVERY time, even after their relationship had developed into much more than friendship and her taking care of his daughter started out as a minor bother and by the end of the book made me adjust my final rating of the book, because it annoyed me so much. Seriously, I don’t think of or refer to my husband by his full name (unless I’m asked to list it in some official capacity). What even is that, Rory?
Honestly, it factored into dropping this out of DIK territory for me; just imagining her screaming out in ecstasy, “OH, MIKE MARTIN,” in bed did me in and gave me a case of the Bad Laughs.
This sounds lovely. But the sex name thing is odd ;)
It is. I think it’s supposed to reflect her awe of him and doesn’t work.
Having that level of awe for a person once you have any kind of personal relationship just doesn’t sound healthy.