Single in Buenos Aires

I'll be honest: before starting this book I thought that Single In Buenos Aires would probably be too much of a chicklit romance novel for my tastes and had primarily chosen to give this novel a try because of its Romanian authorship. It's ideal for my WorldReads project. As it turned out though, I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Roxy! Single In Buenos Aires is written in the first person so it actually feels like one is reading a memoir rather than a fictional work. Roxana Valea's own Argentinean travels do, apparently, quite closely resemble those of her alter ego Roxy so I got a strong sense of authenticity from her portrayals of people and places.

Roxy is a polo player and the sport is of ultimate importance to her, but it doesn't feature too much in this story. Games are played, obviously, but I never felt that my total ignorance of the sport held me back from understanding the storyline or any of the events which occur. Instead the focus is more on Roxy's search for potential love which is frequently very funny. Her sense of humour chimes closely with my own so Single In Buenos Aires often had me giggling. I'm also now completely in love with the city of Buenos Aires myself. If one has enough of a budget to blow, it does sound like the most amazing place!

I was interested in this book for the adventure of living in a new country and trying to meet people with the bonus aspect of horses.  For a while the book works as Roxy moves to Argentina with several goals in mind.  She wants to rehab her wrists after breaking both arms in a polo match.  She is taking Spanish lessons.  She wants to start playing polo again.  She also wants to fall in love.  I enjoyed the parts of this book that dealt with her learning about Argentinian customs.  I liked the women around her coaching her on how to date in South America and how it is different than in Europe.  However, there is a point towards the end where her love interest yells at her for being shallow and I agreed with him totally.  She doesn't seem to know what she wants.  She flips between wanting a boyfriend and then not wanting to commit and then being mad when the person she has refused to commit to has to work or doesn't help her move.  I was exhausted by it and I wasn't in the relationship.  This book is based on the author's real life so it seems churlish to say that I wanted the main character to be a better person but I did.  She has a life that lets her move to foreign countries to play for half the year without working but she is so "woe is me" about it all.  There is also some strange vibes given off at times.  There are a few references to fat people in the book that struck me as judgemental without actually saying anything mean.  It is hard to explain but the fact that the person was fat was not relevant to the story but she would make sure to point it out.  Likewise she has some real hangups about disabilities.  She labels herself disabled when she has a broken arm.  She talks about how no one will date a disabled person like her.  She refuses to dance because of her "disability".  Who cares?  It's a broken arm.  For a book that supposedly centers around polo, there is very little of it here.  I come into horse sports from the perspective of loving horses.  I don't get that from her.  She never talks about the horses.  She never refers to any by name or acknowledges them at all.  During the time she can't play polo she never does anything else with horses.  Most horse people would still be hanging out with them or riding around while their arm heals enough to play again.  She appears to have no interest in them.  Now, there is a sequel to this book called A Horse Named Bicycle so maybe that changes. This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story