Audiobook Review: Wait for It

Author: Jenn McKinlay

Narrator: Eileen Stevens & Andrew Eiden

Audiobook Length: 11 hours 39 minutes

A woman looking for a new lease on life moves to Arizona where she rents a guest house on a gorgeous property with a mysterious owner – a man who teaches her about resilience, courage, and ultimately true love, in this funny, big-hearted novel about hope and healing from New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay.

Stuck in a dreary Boston winter, surrounded by annoyingly happy couples, Annabelle Martin would like nothing more than to run away from her current life. She’s not even thirty years old, twice-divorced, and has just dodged a marriage proposal… from her ex-husband. When an opportunity to start over arises, she jumps at it and flees to Arizona for a dream job as a graphic designer.

When she arrives in the Valley of the Sun, Annabelle moves into a pool house attached to a mansion with a mysterious owner. Having assumed her anonymous landlord, Nick Daire, to be some old, rich curmudgeon, Annabelle is shocked when she finally meets him and finds that he’s not much older than her and is in a wheelchair. Nick suffered from a stroke a year ago, and while there’s no physical reason for him not to recover, he is struggling to overcome the paralyzing fear that has kept him a prisoner in his own home.

Despite her promise to herself not to get involved, Annabelle finds herself irresistibly drawn to Nick. And soon she wonders if she and Nick might help each other find the courage to embrace life, happiness, and true love.

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Wait for It follows 28-years-old graphic designer, Annabelle Martin. She is essentially introduced as the manic pixie dream girl, who is an artist that is always late and loves to live in the moment. At the beginning of the novel, she is living in Boston working as a freelancer and seeing her first ex-husband, Jeremy, on/off in a very casual manner after her divorce from her second ex-husband, Greg. When Jeremy proposes to her, she uses the job offer by her friend in Phoenix as a great excuse to escape. The story then transitions to Annabelle’s move to Arizona to navigate her new life and job.

Before beginning, I greatly tried to wrap my head around Annabelle’s finances. She lives in Boston as a freelancer, which means she makes an insane amount of money to live in a very expensive city with a great view. While this was a tiny detail, it just made me curious about her freelance work to afford living in the city. Even with multiple incomes from living with others, it is still a difficult thing to accomplish. As for Jeremy, I wish there were more to this as he was almost entranced by Annabelle as the one for him. Since we only see Annabelle’s side, it was difficult to connect to why Jeremy would be at a place to want to marry her again. It was not a great introduction to Annabelle’s side of the story as it did not come across that they had a boundary discussion about just being friends instead of dating, which is how it was portrayed.

As for Annabelle’s new job, creative director, there is a man, Carson West, who works for the company, ran by her best friend, Sophie, and her husband, Miguel. This part of the story was very difficult to connect with as this person is a huge part of Annabelle’s friends lives and yet she has never heard of him before. Carson went to ASU together with Miguel and, even though, he was not at the wedding, it just did not make sense this individual was not mentioned to Annabelle once in the past few years.

Annabelle lives in a guest house in Phoenix, which is owned by the other main character, Nick Daire. After suffering from a stroke nine months ago, he is on a slow road to recovery where there is a lot emotionally occupying his mind. He and Annabelle initially communicated through notes before meeting in person where they develop a relationship. A lot of Nick’s part of the story features heavier topics from PTSD, trauma, mental and physical illness, plus parental neglect, but I felt these were not given a lot of time to be explored. I am completely for including all of these in a story, but it felt odd to have some of them not even acknowledged until about 80% into the story. There are many moments like this where even he has anxiety about going to places, like museums, and yet this seemed to be glossed over a lot.

There are tons of plots in this story, so it does feel overwhelming. Nick has a strained relationship with his sister and Annabelle does not respect this late into the story. For me, it was just one more reason to not root for a happily ever after for the couple as they are not ready yet. I wanted a happy for now type ending, but I just could not get to the full HEA. I fully do not understand how Carson has a job at Miguel and Sophie’s company. While there is a subplot once Annabelle starts working there, it is impossible to believe Annabelle was a catalyst to bring these problems to life and they were never previously addressed, even though the book tries to have readers believe. Some may, but I just was not on board with the explanation. Overall, this was a fun concept in theory, but there was a little too much going on for my taste.