Title: Seeing Blind
Author: Poppy Dale
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 293 Pages
Category: Contemporary Romance
Rating: 3.75 Stars
At a Glance: Seeing Blind is not without its flaws, but in the end it’s a sweet and uplifting and sometimes poignant debut romance.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: Jamie’s world is small. He likes it that way – after a lifetime of prosopagnosia (he hates the term “face blindness”), he has learned to keep to himself. The same job, the same coffee shop, the same shirt every time he has a picture taken, all in the hope it will somehow become familiar to him. Friends will only stick around so long after you walk right past them without recognizing them one too many times. Nameless, anonymous hookups from an app become the best way to make any kind of connection. How much more anonymous could it be than him literally not knowing his date’s face?
Lev is on the app for similar reasons. He knows he’s nothing remarkable. If he had a dollar for every time someone told him he was a pretty face but not much else, he wouldn’t be stuck in a dead end job at his friend’s coffee shop. Still, the shy, gorgeous boy who comes in every day does make things seem a little brighter, a little more hopeful. Matching with him on the app seems to be a chance to finally make a good impression.
Review: Seeing Blind is author Poppy Dale’s debut novel, and kudos to her for exploring the challenges of the affliction around which she built this contemporary genre romance. In lieu of the more familiar amnesia conflict, Dale gives readers a character in Jamie who was born with a neurological condition called prosopagnosia, which prevents him from recognizing his own face in the mirror each morning let alone being able to identify his parents and sister without certain cues or clues in order to identify them. Never mind recalling the faces of people he sees at work every day, or at his preferred coffee shop, without putting in some real effort to single out and identify them by hairstyle or eye color or vocal inflection or the way they smile.
Jamie’s condition is a constant exercise in trying to fit in and not offend. He tries so hard and gets things wrong, and it builds an immediate sense of connection to his character; not in a sense that means readers pity him but in that we witness his perseverance and no little courage in doing the things so many people take for granted, and how overwhelming day-to-day interactions can be. Moreover, we understand his dream of finding someone and falling in love is a hope too far out of his reach, yet he can’t help but think about it anyway as he strikes up a friendship with Lev, a guy he starts chatting with on a hookup app. The author ensured their growing emotional connection comes through loud and clear in those messages despite their never having met in person. Or, at least not as far as Jamie knows, which figures as a great twist to the building of their romance.
I liked both of these characters a lot, and appreciated Lev’s insecurities not only as being realistic but as a means of making him more sensitive to and empathetic towards Jamie. This book isn’t overly gratuitous in its angst, which it very well could have been, but is more sweet and uplifting, even given Lev’s backstory. It shines best in its simple message of two kind people finding each other and building a deeper connection through the comfort of text-to-text conversation before they escalate to face-to-face.
The one thing that could’ve made this book so much better, however, and I’m going to get this one sticking point out of the way so I can finish with the good: Seeing Blind needed a solid, knowledgeable editor. I try not to harp on editing overmuch because I know how expensive a good team is, and the occasional missed or misused word is something I’ll gladly breeze right over, but the apparent absence of an eye for detail can make a book unreadable, or near to. Punctuation matters, especially if it means readers must read a sentence or paragraph multiple times to make sense of what’s being said, not to mention who’s saying it. Fortunately I was utterly intrigued and thoroughly charmed by Jamie and Lev, and that made up for some of the frustration.
Another minor issue I had is with the lack of development in some of the supporting characters, namely Jamie’s parents could’ve served a greater purpose, and by that I mean his mother is there to worry and overprotect while his dad is mentioned but never once shows up on page, so who even is he and how does he feel about his son? Jamie’s sister, Pippa, is better fleshed out, however, and I liked her a good deal as his confidante and the one person in his family who understands that if her brother is never given the chance to succeed on his own, how will he ever know he can. There are also a couple of other great side characters—Birdie, Jamie’s coworker, and Kate, Lev’s best friend and sole supporter. I’d have loved to spend more time with them, as they left a memorable impression on the story. Ethan, an occasional barista at the shop, could’ve been given less page time and still functioned in the single purpose he was there to serve—as someone Jamie could misidentify as his favorite barista. In fact, I’d have loved less word count on Ethan and more with Lev’s brother, Stef.
In the end, I’m glad I stuck with Seeing Blind. It truly is a sweet and sometimes poignant debut romance, and I’ll be on the lookout for this author’s sophomore offering.
You can buy Seeing Blind here:
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