New Book Alert: Courage Jonathan (Courage To Rise Book 2) by Heather Nadine Lenz; Warm and Funny Novel About Life After Happily Ever After

 

New Book Alert: Courage Jonathan (Courage to Rise Book 2) by Heather Nadine Lenz; Warm and Funny Novel About Life After Happily Ever After

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I have to hand it to Heather Nadine Lenz. She thought of one of the cutest ways to draw Readers into a second volume if they are unfamiliar with the first. Most authors have a prologue. Others put dabs of exposition throughout the book so they can pick up things as they go on. Others ignore it entirely and expect the Readers to catch up.

In Courage Jonathan, the previous novel, Courage Caroline is summarized in one overlong drunken monologue by a future groom on the day before his wedding.

Jonathan Arrozinni is in Bali ready to marry his fiancee Caroline but as he explains to a bartender, he has cold feet. He recalls the events of the previous book: That he is the son of a wealthy family who started an architectural firm with his brother. He fell in love with Caroline, a yoga instructor from a poor family. His family raised objections and threatened to cut him off. Through a series of romantic complications including both of their exes, Jonathan decides to go for love instead of money and asks Caroline to marry him.

In this opening chapter, the bartender is no doubt considering a career change as Jonathan rambles on and on but the Reader gets a sense of the kind of character that Jonathan is. He is foolish, prone to hasty decisions without thinking, helplessly idealistic, romantic, at times self-centered, entitled because he had spent his life with money, but ultimately good hearted. In this chapter we learn about Jonathan through this summary of the previous book.

Courage Jonathan is a funny and warm book. If Courage Caroline says that  love conquers all and is worth taking the leap, then Courage Jonathan is the more rational friend holding their romantic idiot friend by the belt loops and saying "Whoa there, Love Birds, you might want to hold off and think about this for a while."

The trouble begins right before the wedding. Besides Jonathan's second thoughts, Caroline announces that she's pregnant, and Jonathan's brother makes a humiliating speech earning Caroline's embarrassment and Jonathan's fury. This angers Jonathan so much that not only does he refuse his family's money but he dissolves his partnership with Daniel and resolves to start his own firm. Well a year later, Jonathan is bankrupt, unemployed, and depressed and a fed up Caroline is ready to file for divorce and take their son, Leo with her.

The book has some romantic moments that reveal what a sweet couple Jonathan and Caroline actually are, the kind that are instantly likeable and we root for. In Bali, they observe a beautiful waterfall with the other members of Jonathan's family who before and since are at each other's throats. That moment however brings them together as they observe this natural beauty.

Another moment is during their wedding over water. They have to be barefoot and of course Caroline and Jonathan slip and get wet. As they playfully splash each other, we see this is a couple that take great delight and joy in being together. Despite the family conflicts and Jonathan's concerned feelings at the beginning, the Reader needs these moments to see Jonathan and Caroline as a loving couple caught up in the haze of romance before reality sets in and sets and it does.

After the bankruptcy and the estrangement of Johnathan's family, we see what a life of privilege does to someone who is too used to it and the culture shock when someone has to get used to being on their own for the first time. Jonathan may have felt suffocated by the standards and questioned many of their dealings. He may have constantly tired of them controlling him but now that he has cut the strings, he is wondering what went wrong.

It's not a surprise that Johnathan's architectural firm goes under. He is without the contacts, the backing, and the promotion that his famous name provided. He's practically like a toddler trying to skip learning to walk and trying instead to run around the neighborhood only to fall flat on his face. 

His depression when everything goes under is real enough to be understandable but also comic enough to make one want to shake him out of his funk and tell him to get over himself. It gets more dramatic as he contemplates suicide before he is rescued by a friend. This moment becomes a wake up call for Jonathan as he no longer loses himself to self pity and really takes positive steps to take charge of his life. Before when he broke from his family and started his own firm, he did it basically just to show them off like a pouty kid wanting to prove to his parents "See I did it myself!"

This time he restarts his life to become a better person on his own terms, so he can be a better worker, friend, husband, and father. He becomes a more well rounded person who takes pride in his work and cares for Caroline and Leo.

The ironic thing is at the exact moment when his new life is at its highest, his family are at their lowest. Jonathan may have successfully broken the patterns of entitlement and avarice, but they have not. They end up paying a price for their greed and expect money and a famous name means that they won't face punishment. At least in this book, they will. Jonathan looks on this with bemusement at their situation, relief that he got out, and a haunting thought of who he might have been and where he might have ended up if he stayed.

Courage Jonathan begins with a character who is so laughable that you want to slap him to make him see reality. It ended with him being slapped by life and becoming more real than ever.