Sara's Review: Salsa with the Pope by Samantha Wren Anderson
Author Provided Copy
Publisher: Forty House
Released: August 17, 2015
Genre: Contemporary Women's Fiction
Length: 357 pages
Format: ebook , paperback
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Synopsis
‘What have I accomplished?’ So questions Samantha Wren Anderson on her 33rd birthday. The list is short, as she’s still struggling with her acting career and a walk to the altar—please, even a date at this point is a novelty. But all that changes when she meets Alan. Suddenly Samantha has a romantic boyfriend, who is—even better—a playwright. Life seems perfect. That is, until Sam breaks a fellow classmate’s foot in Salsa class (with her favorite purple stilettos), gets looked over for a great role in a play (that Alan wrote!), has her gall bladder removed (yuck), and has to deal with phone conversations with her mother and grandmother that border on insanity. The ultimate challenge comes in the form of writing a one-woman show though. A dream of Sam’s, she completes the play and revels in its success. Suddenly, she feels that she is becoming the self-reliant woman she has always wanted to be. She can run marathons, she can face her demons…enter Darren James. Baseball’s answer to stud, this tall, dark, and handsome player dances a mean Salsa and sweeps Sam right off her feet. Now the only question remaining is…Alan? Darren? A life of celibacy…
Five + Boundless Stars
I was provided a copy of Salsa With the Pope in exchange for an honest review. I am so so happy I was asked to read this! I will be honest, the title almost got turned down, and at the last minute I took it. I know you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, or title, but sometimes it happens. So I saw Salsa with the Pope and thought “meh. What is this?” The blurb left me a little more intrigued but I still wasn’t excited to read it.
That changed for me on page one! I laughed! Out loud! OMG this book is going to be funny! But it’s more than that. I think Salsa With The Pope should be required reading for women. Yes I said it. No it’s not a self-help book, but the struggles that Sam goes through we have all been there and have all felt it . I am speaking about the way we invest our entire beings into relationships and don’t always see that the other party isn’t all the way in. We lose a piece of ourselves to try to conform to what the other person wants or what we think they want.
“I am no longer me because I am so busy being an extension of him.”
In Salsa with the Pope, Sam falls in love with Alan. A man who clearly has some issues connecting with women. It becomes clear later in the story why, I won’t spoil it. She gives him years and invest her heart and soul into this man, and he is a bastard to her quite often. She puts up with it because she loves him and can’t see herself without him. Like the quote above states, she has become an extension of him. She has changed a lot for him, been looked over and criticized by him. OMG like I said bastard!
Then life changes and Alan is gone from her life, no not dead, but again I’m not going to spoil it. Sam is DEVASTATED!
“See, hope is only good when things work out the way you’d hoped. When circumstances go against that which is hoped for, then your hopes are dashed and your life feels empty, useless and hopeless.”
All I could think was “been there sister!” However Sam finds a way to push through and work through the hurt and pain. Oh what pain.
“Why is it we women can’t see what is really going on when love is involved? Why are we so willing to give ourselves over just to be loved? Don’t we understand that we are worthy of it just by our mere existence? Just by who we are?"
That right there is why I think this book should be required for all women. When in love, at least for the first few times ,we put those blinders on and don’t see what is really going on. For some reason, we accept the bits dished out to us as good enough, and don’t demand what we deserve. At least not until we are older and have learned from our previous experiences.
I give Salsa With The Pope a huge 5, if I could give it a 10, I would.