Tamara Tilley

Learning by Karen Kingsbury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

LEARNING, the second installment in the Bailey Flannigan–aka Baxter family spin-off–was more entertaining than book one, but stemmed on the realm of unrealistic.

Bailey Flannigan is in New York trying to keep up with the rigors of a dancer on Broadway while Cody Coleman is thousands miles away coaching an underdog football team. Bailey is spending quality time with Brandon Paul, but thoughts of Cody are never very far. Brandon only has eyes for Bailey but senses there is still something between her and Cody, while Cody tries to define his relationship with Cheyenne, thus creating the perfect love triangle or rectangle in this case.

I feel LEARNING traveled at a quicker pace than LEAVING, but that might be because I now have a tendency to breeze over back-story I already know. But, Ms. Kingsbury has succeeded in making her readers–at least this one–struggle with who Bailey should spend the rest of her life with. There is a part of me that assumes Kingsbury will eventually free up Bailey and Cody from their current relationships, making it that Bailey and Cody will finally find each other and their happily ever after. But, Kingsbury has also painted Brandon as such a genuine character with his intentions to be nothing but admirable, that somehow I struggle with him getting hurt in the end if Bailey runs back to Cody. And then there is Cody and Cheyenne. Though the spark has never really ignited between the two of them, Cody’s sense of devotion to Cheyenne clouds his thinking.

I didn’t read UNLOCKED, the book where Bailey and Brandon first get to know each other, but I feel I have picked up enough back-story to realize Brandon has changed his out of control ways and it is because of Bailey that he now leads a Christian life. And though his intentions are clear, that he wants to wow Bailey and give her the moon–in this case the Empire State Building–he can do so because of his extravagant wealth. Which of course, would make any girl feel as if she has found her prince charming.

I’m looking forward to getting to the end of the series so I will finally have my answers. I just hope I don’t have to continue to breeze through a quagmire of redundancy that comes from too much back-story.


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