Review: Dear Aaron by Mariana Zapata

Dear Aaron by Mariana Zapata
Publication Date: 10th June 2017
My rating: 4.5 stars 

Ruby Santos knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she signed up to write a soldier overseas. The guidelines were simple: one letter or email a week for the length of his or her deployment. Care packages were optional. Been there, done that. She thought she knew what to expect. What she didn’t count on was falling in love with the guy.

I’ve been a massive fan of Zapata’s work for some time now; her slow burn romances are written so well, that she’s become an auto buy author for me. So when she announced that she had a new book coming out in just a few weeks I was super excited. Of course I got myself a copy straight away and despite having bazillion things to do I started this book immediately. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book this quick in a long time, all my priorities were thrown out of the window, as I devoured this brilliant read. I loved the format in which Zapata wrote Dear Aaron the most, it started off with emails between our two main characters Aaron and Ruby, when Ruby is assigned to be Aaron’s pen pal whilst he’s out on deployment. Both Ruby and Aaron had previously been assigned to pen pals before, so this one didn’t appear any different. But boy were they wrong. 

Like I mentioned before Dear Aaron was one addictive read, the format of emails between Aaron and Ruby, I was completely suckered into, the format was so easy to get into that despite the early awkwardness of our characters getting to know one another, I found myself flying through the pages. I loved getting to know Aaron and Ruby over the course of the story, how slowly overtime they found that they could finally lower down the barriers that they had up for so long and just be who they were. Ruby was such a great character, she was one of those people who had always done so much for other people and hardly ever put herself as a priority (reminded me a lot of myself!). And so having Aaron assigned in my eyes was the perfect thing to have happened, he wasn’t a judgmental character, but actually wanted Ruby to do what was best for her and often pushed her in the right direction to do so, in addition help build her confidence at the same time. I of course fell for Aaron’s character straight away, he too had been through a lot, and deserved to be happy and laughing and so I extremely looked forward to his interactions with Ruby more and more. I of course knew the direction that I wanted this book to go in, I couldn’t see any other way happening, and so really appreciated the slow build up that Zapata gave us of their relationship. I of course found myself experiencing every single feeling that Ruby was going through in the build up of her getting to know Aaron too! I was nervous as hell, excited and later constantly swooning! What can I say Aaron was one heck of a guy. My only minor complaint is that I wished certain things hadn’t been misunderstood and then maybe we could have got more of the swoony scenes, I definitely wanted and needed more! But this aside Dear Aaron was a book that I couldn’t get enough of, I loved experiencing the communication between Aaron and Ruby, the subtle changes from awkward to witty as they got to know each other, the development of their characters (especially Ruby’s, she seriously came a long way in this book) and the development of their relationship. I for one would welcome more books on these two characters, as they easily cemented their places as firm favourites of mine! Zapata is one author whose work you seriously don’t want to miss out on. I’m honestly glad that I still have two of her books to read, as I don’t know what the heck I’d do otherwise!