3 Stars
Publisher: Bellrock Press
Date of publication: February 14th, 2017
Genre: Romance
Where you can find Bashert: Amazon | Barnes and Noble
Book synopsis (from Goodreads):
Would you recognize your soul’s complement in another? Beyond the bliss of actually finding your soul mate, there is a belief that the universe hinges on predetermined people finding their other half, their bashert, to maintain cosmic balance. In BASHERT author, screenwriter, director, and former rabbi Herb Freed immerses us in the heady intoxication and thunderous losses of what it really means to be bashert.
Dan Sobol and Marion Gladstone meet by chance at a screenwriter’s event in Los Angeles. He’s a rabbi turned director known for his cinematic television commercials; she’s a writer and film editor who is recovering from a tabloid-headline screaming Hollywood divorce. From the moment Marion hears Dan’s voice, she knows–and so does he. It’s bashert.
But when did the course of true love ever run smooth? Dan and Marion are soon partners in business as well as life, traveling the world to create movies. He directs, she writes and edits, and life becomes an amazing adventure–until Cancun. There, among the ruins of the Mayan civilization, Marion has an eerie premonition that has the potential to change everything.
Drawing upon his own personal experience, Freed spins a tale unflinching in its examination of life, but weaving along the edge of magical realism. From the bright lights of Hollywood to Mexico, Israel, Paris and the dreamy exhilaration of Jamaica, BASHERT is a love story about transcending life, loss and the boundaries we mistakenly place on our lives and our hearts.
My Review:
I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading Bashert. See, I had gotten an email from NetGalley with their Read Nows. I kinda did a book nerd’s version of drunken Amazon shopping. Except I wasn’t drinking and it wasn’t Amazon. I thought that I had downloaded a book that at its best would bore me to sleep. At its worse, it would completely bore me. I fell somewhere in the middle with Bashert.
I had a hard time following Bashert’s plotline. The book kept jumping from past to present to past. It confused the ever-living out of me. I ended up rereading chapters to understand exactly what was going on. Now keeping what I wrote in mind, I thought that the plotline was original. I wished I could have followed it better.
What intrigued me about this book was that the author didn’t gloss over Dan and Marion’s bad times. He let us know that love wasn’t all sunshine and roses. That there will be dark and turbulent days. It is up to the people to get through them. Which Dan and Marion did. They faced life’s greatest challenges together. Dan always supported Marion and vice versa.
I liked Dan and I got his skepticism when Molly told him that she had talked to Marion. But the more the events in Jamaica unrolled, the more his skepticism was chipped away.
The end of the book confused me. I ended up reading the last chapter a few times and I couldn’t figure out what the author wanted us to think. Not going to get into it but I thought one thing. When I read it out loud to my SO, with a quick briefing on the book, he thought another. I guess we could both be right.
What I liked about Bashert:
A) The locations the book was set in
B) The storyline
C) Dan and Marion’s love story, the good and bad
What I disliked about Bashert:
A) Plot hard to follow
B) Jamaica. With everything going on, the whole festival storyline added to me not being able to follow the book.
C) The end of the book
I would give Bashert a rating of Older Teen. There is language. There are sex and sexual situations. The sex/sexual situations are very vague. There is mild violence. I would recommend that no one under the age of 16 read this book.
There are trigger warnings in the book. They would be: Drug use
I am on the fence about recommending this book to family and friends. I would let them know the plotline and let them make their own decision. I would give them a heads up about the trigger warning.
I am on the fence about rereading this book. On one hand, I want to because I find the whole concept of Bashert fascinating. On the other hand, I don’t because the book confused me too much.
I would like to thank Bellrock Press and NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Bashert.
All opinions stated in this review of Bashert are mine.
**I received a free copy of this book and volunteered to review it**
Do you believe in true love like Bashert was describing? Why or why not?
Can you read a book where the plotline is hard to follow? Why or why not?
Confusing endings? A deal breaker when it comes to reading anything by the author again? Why or why not?
