The Lost Art by Jennifer Griffith

Synopsis:

Dowdy art exhibit coordinator Ava Young is happy with her man-suits and sensible clogs. She likes the way they clip-clop on the museum’s tile floor. But they don’t win her any lovelorn looks from her office crush. In fact, the handsome new guy calls her “sir” when they first meet. Oh, well. She’s always known the only way a guy would take a second look at her was if she was the only person in the room. And on fire.

But after her workplace crush devastates her by, frankly, calling her something super-duper mean, Ava is ready to make some drastic changes inside and out, even if it means giving up chocolate, or taking hilariously out-of-date but strangely wise-sounding advice on femininity from a 1959 book on “How to Snare a Modern Man.”

Either way, she’d better hurry because when a priceless art exhibit gets a theft threat on Ava’s watch, a billionaire bachelor and a handsome FBI agent will be taking a good, long look at the art.

And at Ava.

My Review: 3.5 STARS

The Lost Art was definitely a rough book to get through for me. I am not sure if it was my mood or the craziness of real life or just what it was.

The first 55% of the book is kind of blah for me. We have Ava, who is a plain Jane, by the book kind of gal. She over hears a few comments from co-workers that are just mean. She gets a really bad flu and during her recovery time she decides that she is going to give herself a massive makeover. And with this massive makeover she decides that she has to "play the part" of the new and improved Ava. I personally did NOT like all the fakeness and the lies... they really got on my nerves. She wasn't being true to herself and became the ditzy blond that needed help from men all the time.

Enter in the "love interests". We have Kellen McMullen... the billionaire playboy... Riccardo Ford... the FBI agent assigned the the art theft... and Enzio Valente... the jerky co-worker. She is pretty much acting like a teenager when it comes to all the guys. With Kellen she has to keep him happy because he funded the whole exhibit... with Agent Ford she is instantly thinking of him as her future husband every chance she gets... and with Enzio she just wants to throw in his face that she is now a knock out and he can't have her. Childish and totally degrading herself in my opinion. By the end of the book she does figure out the balance between the old Ava and the new one. She ends up with exactly the right guy for her. I can't really give it away though. You'll just have to read it to find out who gets the girl! ;)

Anyway... things started looking up towards the end of the book. I'm not going to give anything away but lets just say I was not expecting what actually happened and I was completely wrong in guessing the "who done it".

I was really starting to like the book and was considering bumping up the rating to 4 stars... and then I got to the ending. And yes folks... another book that just ended!! Ugh!! I hate that!! And because of that ending it stayed at 3.5 stars. One word... EPILOGUE!! No matter how rough of a time I had with a book an amazing epilogue can change everything for me!!

All in all it was a good read... just wasn't the great read I was looking for! But I will definitely give this author another chance... who knows... maybe the next book I read will sweep me off my feet!