Relationships ... lost and found

In Landline by Rainbow Rowell Georgie McCool is out to save her 15 years of marriage.  Her husband Neal travels to Omaha with their 2 daughters to celebrate 2013’s Christmas while Georgie stays behind for work in Los Angeles….. magically (and due to some clever writing!) she makes the connection via a landline from 2013 to 1998 when she and Neal were dating and struggling to come to terms with what they each wanted from the relationship.  Remember those emotions? How everything seemed more vivid? And had more drama?  It’s easy to see (from the outside) that Georgie needs to take some deep breaths and think about what is really important to her – watching her go through that process can be painful at times.  Readers who have been in longer-term relationships will definitely appreciate this novel, but to me that means 20-somethings or older – NOT the high school students who loved Rowell’s Eleanor and Park and Fangirl.

Chestnut Street by Maeve Binchy is a collection of short stories centered in a street in Dublin and many of them focus on marriages, too. Binchy explores the life choices we make – the advice that we often choose not to follow and the consequences of those decisions. This is a book about love and loss which I would ration – picking it up for a story now and again – in part to avoid the feeling of similar plots (although there are plenty of unexpected twists) and in part to savor the last published writing of a favorite author for 30 years beginning with reading Light a Penny Candle, and continuing through Circle of Friends, Scarlet Feather and many more.

Possible read-alikes for Binchy: Jeffrey Archer, Rosamunde Pilcher, Kate Morton, Lucinda Riley, Adriana Trigiani.  Check Novelist for others.

 

One Plus One by JoJo Moyes

I have been actively promoting One Plus One by JoJo Moyes because I know that faculty and staff  have greatly enjoyed (and recommended to me) several other titles by her. This novel, set in England and Scotland, was so much fun that it had me laughing out loud.  The antics of a large, drooling dog, 2 children (an adolescent boy who chooses to wear mascara and his younger sister, the math genius), plus their single Mum and her employer were hilarious, yet heart-wrenching at times. Tales of their travels across the countryside are worth the read alone. 

But I also very much liked how JoJo Moyes developed each character and used each one’s situation to examine how we are often misunderstood. She stressed how cruel youth can be to anyone who is different, and how those insecurities sometimes transfer to adult situations and the poor choices that are then made. Moyes interwove questions about ethics, adult relationships, and the possibility of romance while also exploring class differences and the many difficulties faced by a family living from one paycheck to the next. Not all of the issues were resolved, but most were; and that contributed to the warmth and enjoyment of this story.  I am certainly looking forward to reading more (starting with Me Before You) by this highly entertaining author. Comparisons to Irish author Maeve Binchy are often made so look for titles by her, too!