Janie Face to Face [Janie #5]

This title was illogically chosen. It's called Janie Face to Face and you would think that it would refer to Janie finally coming face to face with Hannah considering the premise, however she doesn't. That was the most disappointing part of this book. There are few books where I am unable to guess the plot if not large chunks of it but surprisingly this was one of those books.

The premise talks about a famous crime writer wishing to write a story about Janie/Jennie/Jane but it turns out that the writer isn't who we think he is. Everyone in the book considers people around them for choosing to write the book and everyone has their own motivations. It turns out that some of Janie's Spring family resent her for choosing her Johnson family over her bio-family for what seems to be the last time by allowing Hannah to still go free in the last book. But it turns out that despite everyone's desire to catch Hannah and get justice, it's no one we know betraying Janie. Instead, it's Hannah. Like I said, totally surprising.

I don't know how I didn't see that coming from the moment that we heard the book's title, The Happy Kidnap and all the badmouthing the author did towards Janie's Johnson parents. In the end, however, Hannah does get caught but without any sort of confrontation that I was waiting/hoping for. Instead, she gets arrested in the Johnson's new house while they are at Janie's wedding and that's the end of that. I felt like the ending was sort of rushed. Like maybe the author didn't know how to make Janie and Hannah come face to face so she just didn't allow them too.

I loved this book but I also hated it too. I loved that Janie and Reeve got married and they had that romantic airport proposal with all of those people watching. That was probably one of my favorite scenes in the book. And it was fitting that later when Reeve gave Janie her engagement ring, it was also in the airport. I just wish we had gotten to see some of the time Janie and Reeve had together during the weekend that led to the spontaneous proposal. Without it, it makes me feel slightly lost.

I hated that Janie was becoming Jennie Spring. That she was leaving behind her Johnson family in favor of the only family she was supposed to have. But I think that she and the author forgot that nothing was how it was supposed to. I hated everything that Janie was doing to become herself. I loved her college essay, I loved her emotional turmoil. It all reminded me of Juliet from Shakespeare's question, What is in a name? I wanted Janie to continue to balance her lives, her selves. Because she wasn't just Janie Johnson but she wasn't just Jennie Spring either and it felt wrong to me for her to give up everything she was in order to be someone she never got the chance too. She wasn't the Jennie-who-might-have-been, so why try now? I hated all of that. I wanted her to choose a new wedding dress for herself, not use her Spring mother's old one. I wanted her to figure out a way to tell both of her families at the same time that she was getting married. I hated Janie's evolution into Jennie but luckily she married Reeve and became someone with a different name entirely.

Overall, though I did enjoy the book although some of the repetition with things bothered me. I do recommend fans of the series read this book. We got into Hannah's head quite a bit. She hates Janie. She believes she stole her parents, her money and all the love she should've had. Every time someone is mean to her, she blames it on Janie. We learn that she viciously chose to give Janie to her parents believing that they would get busted within days and thrown in jail for kidnapping.