Sometimes you can't let go of the boy you left behind.Derailed was a sweet romance filled with hope, grief and denial. It tells the story about a girl who returns home to find herself after her fiance dies. There was something so lovely and yet terribly sad about coming to terms with grief and the past. I loved the sense that Molly could go home again and find the thing that had been missing all along - contentment.The story line is simplistic, and even though I've read the same similar story line over and over again, there's no doubting that it's always done differently - such as it has been with Derailed. In some ways, I feel like I'm returning to my roots with books like these. I cut my teeth on them. The characters were delightful. There wasn't a character I didn't like, even though there was a sort of love triangle going on. I can't say it was a convincing one because I knew right from the start who she would end up with. -sigh- I'm having a real problem on knowing just what to write in case it reveals something you would rather read about. Anyway, Molly was very human in the fact that she had issues she had to deal with before she could move on with her future and that included her father, her dead fiance and Ben - the main male character.Ben was a character who was hard for me to understand. His reactions to things was so different then what I would have imagined they would be. Maybe it represented his maturity from days gone by. I honestly don't know. Actually, when I think about it, perhaps there is a sense of unpredictability in this book.The characters' relationships with each other reminded me of a real community. The friends hang out at bars, gossiped about the opposite sex, dated, fought, made-up and had each other's backs when needed. Maybe the writing wasn't as prosy as some other books I've read, but there was enough of it that it gave me a sense of what the characters were feeling.Overall I have to say that if you're looking for a complex, thought-provoking book, well, I wouldn't say you've found it here, but if you're looking for a light read and something that will make you roll your eyes, smile, sulk and go 'awww' then this is definitely the right book for you.I would recommend this to anyone who's a hopeless romantic.Now for my rating:-3 out of 5 starsThis review can be found here:-http://magicalmanuscriptsandwritingthings.blogspot.co.nz/
