RR (Rae Reads)

YA is my genre. For sure. But that one day, I went to my local bookstore and stood in front of the 'fiction' shelf. I wanted to try a different genre; a more sophisticated book, perhaps. I picked up Lola's Secret with a totally different impression in mind.

Lola's Secret focuses on an eighty-four years old woman residing in Australia. She stays in a motel run by her for years and now run by her son and daughter-in-law. For Christmas, she decided to invite strangers to stay in her motel for free, and while planning for that, she has to handle a few more stuff including her two granddaughter's rocky relationship, her own relationship with her daughter-in-law, problems in a charity shop she works for, and an old lover she happened to find. 

Prior reading the book, I had never thought Lola's an old woman. And because this is my first Monica McInerney book, I did not have a good impression on Lola. Years of reading books with teenagers, or young adults as protagonists, having Lola as the main character is a change. Of course, I was disappointed to know about Lola's true identity, but I carried on reading in hopes to fulfil my promise to myself to read a different genre book.

The book started at a rather slow pace. Many characters are introduced and different stories are introduced as well. Because there was so many introductions to the characters, the first half of the book is a bit dull for me. It took me about a month to get to the second half of the book.

The second half is truly the starting point of the story. To me it is. Everything started falling into place and without any more introductions, the plot goes on smoothly, and rather interestingly.

In the end, Lola's Secret is overall a good book. It has a lot of family lessons to learn from, and there are a lot of interesting and adorable characters. Although the buildup was rather boring, but it serves a purpose in filling in the blanks of the story.

Right now, I need to go read another book probably from rom-com or YA. Even though Lola's Secret is good, I don't think I will be returning to that side of the genre yet.