Book Review - The Crooked Path by Irma Joubert

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**May Contain Spoilers**

Lettie compared to herself to her "beautiful" friends always feeling like an outsider because she perceived she is lacking. She is short and on the chubbier side while her friends are richer, the other is beautiful or called each other best friends. However, she doesn't let her "shortcomings" hold her back and becomes a doctor like her father. Marco lived through a war that robbed him not only the love of his life but also his health. He moves to South Africa since he can no longer bare the winters in Italy. He becomes one of Lettie's first patients and their relationship grows as she tries to nurture him back to health. Will the duo be able to love again?

The cast of characters appeared in The Child of the River, but I didn't find it necessary to read the first book to enjoy this book.  While, I enjoyed the a book I felt like it wasn't as enjoyable as it could be. The book was divided into four "life" events and the first two spoke about Lettie's and Marco's lives before meeting each other. These chapters were filled with details and consistent in timing while the later chapters had just pertinent details and, sometimes, it was vague how much time passed between pages. For example, Lettie cries about over her beloved's friend's death, but they mentioned her parents' death in passing. I felt like when they were talking about Lettie's and Marco's soul mates, they spent a lot of time going into the story and building the ambience.

There were a few things that bothered me about the story. Lettie is portrayed as the chubby and lovable friend (I sometimes find her petty) and she gets jealous over her friends' happiness, money, beauty, relationships, and children. However, I am surprised she  never felt like a part of Macro's heart will always be with Rachel (his first love). She just loves him blindly even though she notices that he doesn't speak much about Rachel. Another thing is when she realizes that she is falling in love with De Wet again, why does she hesitate? She knows that he likes her and she likes him but plays this "Oh, I don't know" game, but craves his attention. After all this talk about crooked paths, shouldn't she know that her crooked path is leading her to De Wet especially, since she has been in love with him since childhood.

**Disclosure - I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review**