The Wall of Winnipeg and Me by Mariana Zapata - A Book Review
Synopsis:
Vanessa Mazur knows she’s doing the right thing. She shouldn’t feel bad for quitting. Being an assistant/housekeeper/fairy godmother to the top defensive end in the National Football Organization was always supposed to be temporary. She has plans and none of them include washing extra-large underwear longer than necessary.
But when Aiden Graves shows up at her door wanting her to come back, she’s beyond shocked.
For two years, the man known as The Wall of Winnipeg couldn’t find it in him to tell her good morning or congratulate her on her birthday. Now? He’s asking for the unthinkable.
What do you say to the man who is used to getting everything he wants?
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Tropes:
- Slow Burn
- Forced Proximity
- Marriage of Convenience
- Grumpy X Sunshine
- Enemies to Lovers
- Sports Romance
The Wall of Winnipeg was my first introduction the author Mariana Zapata. The book had first been on my radar for a few years, during my time of Wattpad (what a throwback!), but it wasn’t something I ever got around to reading. Despite being aware of the book, it wasn’t one I was overly eager to indulge in – that was until teasers of the book made its way onto my TikTok FYP and I subsequently added it to my TBR list.
Since The Wall of Winnipeg and Me was a book I first came across during my college reading days, I assumed with the book cover that it was going to be a college sports romance. I guess the assumption of it potentially being a college sports romance wasn’t in my interests much as the older and further away I got from my own college experience – so I think this could’ve been a factor of why I hadn’t read this story earlier.
The Wall of Winnipeg and Me follows Vanessa Mazur who works as a personal assistant to pro American football player, Aiden Graves and has done for the past 2 years. Aiden is quiet, grumpy and curt – driving Vanessa crazy. Vanessa eventually decides she wants to pursue her own business of creating digital designs and therefore, informs Aiden and his manager of her departure. This leaves the pro football player grumpier than ever and causes an inconvenience for his manager, who tries his ultimate best to persuade Vanessa to stay. Despite lacking a backbone, Vanessa stands her ground but offers to stay until a replacement is found.
Vanessa continues working for Aiden for a few weeks, putting up with his negative and grumpy attitude by secretly putting up her middle finger to her boss – only he’s aware she’s flipping him off every time she does it. After overhearing a negative conversation between Aiden and his manager Trevor, in which Trevor bad mouths Vanessa – she decides she’s had enough and quits on the spot.
A few months later, Aiden approaches Vanessa outside her apartment begging her to come back and work for him because she’s the only one he can tolerate. Despite being offered more money, Vanessa refuses as he’d failed to see why she quit on the spot in the first place and didn’t want to suffer his moody behaviour any further. However, Aiden refuses to take no for an answer and over the next few days, continues to show up at Vanessa’s apartment in the hopes he can persuade her to come back.
During an exchange at Vanessa’s apartment, Aiden reveals that his work visa is due to run out and he doesn’t want to stay playing for the team that gives him residency, so will therefore be deported back to Canada. Vanessa accidentally suggests the idea for him to marry someone, so that he can gain American citizenship without needing to stay on his current football team. This leads Aiden to the idea for Vanessa being the person he marries. Not wanting to back to working for Aiden again, she refuses his offer.
Being determined that he is, Aiden comes back to persuade Vanessa and offers to pay off her student loans and buy her a house, in exchange for her agreeing to marry him for him to gain citizenship – the condition being that they must stay married for 5 years. After thinking it through and going over the possible risks of their marriage being exposed, being thrown in jail potentially – Vanessa agrees to Aidens request.
After agreeing to marry Aiden, Vanessa quickly has to move into Aiden’s home which he shares with roommate and fellow teammate, Zac. Upon moving in with each other, the pair set off the Vegas where they elope. As the pair begin to navigate their fake marriage, they become more and more comfortable with one another – slowly developing into a close friendship and then a flirty relationship. Having previously made no effort with Vanessa when she was his personal assistant, Aiden makes a conscious effort to develop a friendship with her in their fake marriage.
The story then follows their relationship and how they navigate their marriage to make it appear real and how they go from strangers, to friends and then to lovers. As the story progresses, Vanessa’s childhood and awful home life is revealed; how she grew up with a drug addict mum – leading her to go into foster care with her younger brother. This leading to the bigger reveal that her sister has a vicious vendetta against her and wishes her dead – quite literally; she’s pushed Vanessa down the stairs and ran her over with her car.
This is a slow burn romance fiction that slowly develops into a real relationship between the pair, where they accept their feelings for one another.
Sometimes I struggle to write my reviews in a way that documents my memory of the story. I feel like I either am very vague about the events of the story, or I am too detailed and end up rewriting the story. I feel like I’m very vague towards romance stories, but when it comes to psychological thrillers, I tend to rewrite the events of the story.
With this review, I feel like I haven’t detailed much about the book; aside from a vague outline of the plot, but I feel that’s because not much happened in this book that was shocking or twisting. It’s simply about two individuals who start a fake marriage and end up together – nothing shocking happens in between that needs to be documented and things about montane everyday life don’t seem to be of any relevance to other parts of the book.
This was the slow burn of all slow burn romance books. Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy a slow burn romance from time to time, only if there’s flirtation through the book or a POV from the male protagonist. This book lacked any flirtation or banter between the characters up until 70% of the book, which was very long considering the book was 500 pages plus. When a book is very slow in developing the characters romance, I do prefer to experience the male protagonist’s POV so you can gage how they’re feeling at each part of the story development. However, this book was only portrayed from the females POV. Although there were hints of flirting and development here and there, it was barely a sprinkle.
I have no problem with books having no spice, but sometimes you go into reading a book expecting it – so for me, I went into reading The Wall of Winnipeg and Me with the expectation that there’d be spice. So I was very disappointed to find there’s only one bit of spice and it happens on the last chapter of the book – I do wish there had of been more spice.
As previously mentioned, the book was more than 80% through before any serious development had been made. The book very much lacked any development in between, that would tie readers over until the ending. Once the characters eventually got together (baring in mind it was in the last chapter), it was the end of the story, so you didn’t get to see the pair develop their real relationship; like I’ve experienced in other slowburn/fake marriage books. Therefore, I do think the ending was rushed.
I felt like the premise of their fake marriage was lost during the book. It was mentioned why they embarked on their fake marriage, but you didn’t see the development of Aiden receiving his residency until the epilogue, where it was brought up to tie the book to a close.
What I did notice about this particular fake marriage was that typically couples have an issue that they have to face which makes them realise their feelings of one another, but this story didn’t have a major issue that the couple had to face within their fake marriage. Maybe this was to avoid being stereotypical of all other fake marriage romances.
I will say, I’m very fond of an epilogue that ties together the story – especially if the story is a standalone and there’s no other opportunity to see the characters in another story. I appreciated that this book had an epilogue that showed Aiden and Vanessa years later with their children. Despite it being short, I appreciated that Mariana provided the chapter so that we could see the pair had a successful and happy life.
Despite my feelings, I did enjoy reading this book. It wasn’t a book I wanted to DNF at all, I just went into reading this story having expectations. I think in future I should fully look into the type of story it is and the tropes featured. I found myself intrigued to the slow burn and itching to see the characters break through and admit their feelings for one another – so much so, that I stayed up to 4am reading just to see if it would be the chapter they finally get together (it wasn’t btw).
I’m not sure any other of Mariana’s books are of interest to me, but who knows, they may pop up on TikTok and intrigue me. So I wouldn’t say no to reading more by Mariana, but I wouldn’t actively jump to explore her other pieces of work.
I find it hard rating books I didn’t overly love, but equally didn’t overly hate. I do think the book was hard to follow at times, particularly with the female was speaking something of detail and length. I also think the book could’ve been shorter, by about 200 pages. I get that it’s a slow burn romance so it’s supposed to be slow in the relationship developing, but much of the story was filler to the plot. I would’ve enjoyed seeing more engagement and banter towards the characters – the male protagonist, Aiden was very bland in personality which didn’t ease up at all in the story (he was like a brick wall). I do prefer slow burns that give you something in between, to keep you ticking over.
Did I hate the book? Definitely not, I was eager to see their relationship develop. Is it my new favourite? Nope.
Georgia
♥
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