BOOK REVIEW: Lesson Learned by Katie Cawood
A prefect, sweet little rom-com you don't want to miss.
If you are looking for a cute, sweet, slow burn romance between two fifth grade teachers, this is the book for you! I was very lucky and thankful to be part of the street team for Katie’s book release, so I have been invested in this even before the book cover was even revealed. I have enjoyed helping to promote the book, and I was thrilled when the book ended up being as good as all the other aspects of this experience.
I immediately wanted to be part of the team and have the opportunity to read the book when I found out that the book revolved around two teachers. While I never taught elementary school, I have taught middle and high school for 14 years, and I am now entering my tenth year as a school administrator. I connected with the characters, the classroom moments, the stress of field trips, and even the conference experience. (Yes, it sucks when the sessions you want to go to are full or get canceled!)
Basically, we have teachers who work across the hall from each other. It’s clear from the beginning of the book that Owen is in love with Sarah, but Sarah has been in a long term relationship with Eli, the local high school football coach, who turns out to be a complete idiot and you basically hate him from the first interaction. As the story progresses, there is ongoing flirtiness between the two and some serious sexual tension. It’s hard to ignore when even 10 year olds pick up on it!
I liked the characters. I thought they were struggling through the ups and downs of education in an honest and realistic way. Education causes you to rely on each other and I loved how they all came together as a community to make the school better for the kids. Sarah is a total overachiever who always has a new grand idea, I can relate, I am always biting off more than I can chew and have a really hard time saying no. This is Sarah.
You are the highlight of my day, every day. Your name comes up in so many of my pro and con lists.
Owen was more of the reserved, suffer in silence guy, who supported Sarah, but also realized that if she was with Eli, he needed to try to do something for him. The STEM For the Win podcast is awesome, and I love that nerdy aspect of Owen. He’s definitely a cinnamon roll!
As with any friends to lovers trope, I always have some issues with the peripheral characters that are always the ones to get hurt because the two main characters are too blind to see how they truly feel for each other until there are others involved. While we have Eli and Kendall as those peripheral characters, I appreciated how Katie wrote the scenes regarding the relationships. As much as I never really liked Eli, I still felt bad and could see how hurt he was, but his handling of the situation made me want to punch him. On the other hand, I applaud Kendall’s reaction, but I still think it sucks and Owen shouldn’t have been so selfish.
Overall, the loved the school scenes so much! My favorite school scenes included:
Airplanes
Field trip
Garden
Choir concert
Everything with Bentley and Ava
This is the perfect little rom-com that just makes you happy and leaves you wanting more. The characters' banter and interactions are sweet and fun and make you want to scream that they just don’t get it! The dual POV is perfect in developing and showcasing their conflicting, growing and changing feelings for each other and those they are currently involved with. The structure makes the flow of the reading easy and soon you forget that you are anywhere other than Grissom Elementary School. The pop culture references are always fun as well, I mean, at this point who doesn’t love Taylor Swift.
Where does this land on my bookshelf?
I’m a book snob and very rarely put rom-coms on my top shelf, just because I struggle with them. I struggle with the miscommunication and the idiocracy that many of the main characters display. This one though is just really cute! Yes, there are miscommunication and those obnoxious moments where you just want to slap them in the face, but if they figured it out too soon, there wouldn’t be a book, so I guess I understand. But, I really thought this book was cute and sweet, and I have an extra special soft space in my heart for teachers/education based fiction. That’s a really long winded way of saying that I will put this one on my top shelf. It’s back to school season right now, so there is no better time than now to check out this sweet debut novel by Katie Cawood! Thank you Katie for letting me part of your Street Team, I loved every moment of it!
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If you are really bored, you can read about some of my personal adventures in life raising two teenagers, commentating on professional wrestling shows and loving a husband who is fighting Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and all the lesson I learn along the way. Educate This.