Cenotaphs Review

E-ARC, 196 Pages
Adult/ Contemporary
By: Rich Marcello
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟 1/2

I was provided an E-ARC of this book in exchange of an honest review and that did not affect my rating or opinions on the book.

When I was approached by the author to read this book, I was intrigued by the cover because it is one of those eye-capturing covers and I wanted to know more about the story. I proceeded to read the synopsis and I was excited because it is a story about platonic love and I don’t get to read this kind of story often.

And if you do wanna know what the story is about let me quote this from the synopsis on GR:
When Ben Sanna, a contemplative retiree with a penchant for helping people, and Samantha Beckett, a secretive New York City hedge fund manager, meet by chance in a small Vermont town, they enter into a tenuous relationship. Over several weeks, Samantha and Ben open their pasts inch by inch, sift through their futures consciously, and come to terms with the strength and depth of their bond.

Now the story is a short one, it is under 200 pages and can be read in one day which I did. The writing is good for the most part, there were some parts that I felt were weird and I am gonna be using the word weird in this review a lot because it actually sums up my feelings toward the story. The story jumps between Ben and Samantha’s POVs and we also get some chapters with Ben’s thoughts. The main chapters were good but those chapters with the thoughts were a bit strange as Ben had what we refer to as flight of thoughts in psychology and as the name implies, he was jumping between different thoughts without a strong connection between them and the double spacing used in those chapters made it more obvious. I don’t know if it was intentional as part of an old guy thinking process or if it was just the way the author wrote him. Also, at one point one of the characters ask what is a Cenotaph and the other reply of the literal definition that my kindle gave me of the world so it felt a strange way of defining the word.

I agree that it is not a romantic book but the relationship between the two characters was very fast even for a platonic one. I am gonna use the word weird again because that’s what I thought of Samantha when she was first introduced and then when she started getting closer to Ben. I couldn’t define if there was romance or not at first but I can see why it is more platonic later on. I am young and I am not experienced when it comes to this kind of relationships so it may be a problem of mine and not the book itself.

Ben was more likable for me and I enjoyed his willingness to listen to people and help them. Samantha was not bad at all but I did not warm up to her the way I did with Ben. The thing that made me salty is the way the plot unfolded because it was predictable as most of the stories involving older people do and I wish it moved in a different direction.

Summary: I think it is a good story and kind of an atypical one. The writing was good most of the time and the characters were well written. I expected more from the plot but overall it was a good and fast read!