Breakaway Books

Authored by Rebecca Yarros; Published 2020; Romance

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

It has been argued that romance novels are formulaic to the point of inducing boredom. While I don’t fully agree with that assessment for Great and Precious Things, it is certainly verging on that territory.

In Great and Precious Things, Cam returns home from a tour in the military to a small town in which he is nearly universally despised. His father, suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s, requested his assistance in getting a do-not-resuscitate order (DNR), immediately pitting Cam against his brother Alexander and everyone in the town. Everyone, that is, except for Willow, the former girlfriend of Cam’s little brother—who died when serving in the military himself, partially because of a decision that Cam made. 

It is difficult to buy into this novel without buying into the concept of soul mates. Personally, I don’t put much stock in the idea, but from the opening pages of the book, it is clear: Cam and Willow are meant to be. I wanted to know more about why they were so intimately connected beyond having known each other in their childhood—do their temperaments balance each other out? Do they want the same things in life? But mostly, the novel just focused in on how they were meant for each other, the town wasn’t a fan, and Cam would do anything to defend her. Even Willow’s previous relationship with Cam’s brother doesn’t cause problems for the two, beyond an amount of wallowing in guilt on Cam’s part. (The “I’ll never deserve you” schtick wore a little thin for me.)

The town itself posed an interesting challenge in this novel. Cam stridently disregards what other people think of him, but it is quite simply impossible to accomplish some things in this town without the people’s support—including getting medical guardianship of his father. The ethical dilemmas involved in Cam’s father’s care and the repeated debates between Cam and Alexander were a high point of the novel for me. I understood why both men felt the way they did and was frustrated when the author turned Alexander into way more of a villain than he had to be.

The romance in Great and Precious Things won’t challenge you, but the rest of the novel poses some interesting questions. It could be worth a shot!