I was planning on going out to take advantage of my long weekend break, but the insanely hot weather is making me sluggish, so I decided to stay home and catch up on the items I wrote in my drafts folder instead.
Last year for my birthday, I bought myself the book Getting to You. However, I only had time to read it in the last few weeks of January. This is the third book I've read by author Jonaxx and the second book in the Azucarera de Altagracia trilogy.
The book focuses on Sancha Alcazar, the daughter of one of the wealthiest azucarera owners in the fictional town of Altagracia, and Alonzo Salvaterra, a guy who, despite coming from a well-to-do family, works as an employee for the Alcazars and has always had a crush on Sancha. When a simple gesture turned into a scandal, everyone assumed it was all Alonzo's fault, and he loses everything he has worked for. Years later, their paths would cross again, but the question is if time would be able to cure the wounds of the past, and whether Sancha's confession and remorse will be enough to reconcile and compensate for what Alonzo lost.
Because the pacing was a little slow at first, it took me months to finish this book. On the other hand, I'm sure the author had that in mind on purpose, given that the novel begins with characters in high school and another about to enter college. The novel's setting gave me insight into the lives of azucarera employees and what it was like to be part of a wealthy family in the Visayas (since the book's setting references many places, activities, and routines related to the province of Negros).
But I guess it was still a good decision that I read the book all the way through. Aside from figuring out how the story progressed from one chapter to the next, I realized that while shy, torpe characters in fiction may appear uninteresting and boring at first, they can actually make a reader's heart flutter, similar to how guys do it in real life. And, in this day and age of "instant everything" (including romantic relationships), Getting to You approached the subject of slow burn romance in such a way that it truly showed how the characters developed. And perhaps it is one of the positive aspects about it. Slow burn romance in fiction increases reality by providing readers a perspective of how things happen organically, as near to how things might happen in real life as possible.
Despite the fact that this novel has 40 chapters, I want to mark it as a reading achievement completed on my reading list. The story's romance element was just right. And, despite being labeled as a book for readers aged 18 and up, there isn't much "adult content" in this book compared to Jonaxx's other books that I've read previously. And, to be honest, I was okay not reading any of it with Getting to You since, in my opinion, adult stuff isn't necessarily necessary to make romance fiction truly romantic. The love element may even appear in the form of an epilogue written from a male perspective – even if it comes from the most timid (read: torpe) guy on the planet.
