Sweet Caroline

I just finished reading Sweet Caroline by Rachel Hauck and it was so fun to read!

Caroline is somewhat of a people-pleaser. When there's a need she steps in to help without much thought to her own dreams. Her mother was flighty and ran off when she was younger, and Caroline desperately does not want to be like that. So she goes to the other extreme and becomes ultra-dependable.

She has lived in small town South Carolina all her life, but when a friend tells her of a job opportunity in Barcelona she decides to throw caution to the wind and go for it. But when the owner of the cafe where she works dies and leaves the cafe to her, it throws a big kink in her new plans. She feels the weight of responsibility to keep the cafe going and the other employees from loosing their jobs.

As if that's not enough, Deputy Sherriff J.D. Rand steals her heart and then her first love, Mitch O'Neal comes back to town. Who knew so much could happen in Smalltown, America! Caroline has some big decisions to make and she's going to need some big help.

I especially loved Caroline's humor and how her head and her heart would literally talk to each other in the middle of certain situations. I also like that Caroline is grounded and not flighty and helpless. The pain she's lived with because of her mother's abandonment guides all her decisions. It's made her who she is, but does she have to be controlled by it? She never understood the God-thing and I like how he got her attention.

I don't want to spoil the ending, but she had to make some really tough decisions and trust that they were all for the best. I think she made the right ones, but someone else may disagree. You'll have to let me know.

This book is a wonderful example of "If I'd known what all I'd have to go through, would I still do it?" So many times we just want the answers. We want to know what to expect in life. But then we go through hard times and we have to make hard decisions. Looking back, if we'd known ahead of time would we choose to go through all of that? Or would we back out and miss what God wanted to teach us. The blessings from hardships.