Week-End's Minis XV: The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in January 2011

basis, n.

There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you’re in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.

If the moment doesn’t pass, that’s it—you’re done. And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far. It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back. Sometimes it’s even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover’s face.

How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Levithan’s The Lover’s Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.

Genre: Fiction, contemporary
Series: None

What do you need to know? As the blurb indicates, The Lover's Dictionary is written like a dictionary. Each word the narrator has decided to examine is defined by a moment, a feeling, an event that stem from the narrator's relationship with his lover. You have the perfect example in the blurb with basis :) Each page is dedicated to a word and like a real dictionary, it's in alphabetical order - therefore, the story is not told in chronological order and readers have to piece the story together from the bits they get from each definition. In addition, the narrator is anonymous and the gender of his lover is also unknown.

Why this book? Well, I think it's Ames who first brought this book to my attention. And then, it started to pop up on many other blogs (Christine, Hils, Mariana and Kailana). I thought the concept was very original and wanted to discover this book for myself :)

What I liked? The Lover's Dictionary was a quick, enjoyable read. The concept is very original, interesting and refreshing and that's obviously what made the book stands out. However, it had to be combined with the story Mr. Levithan wanted to tell and his writing for it to be as good :) Now, looking back, The Lover's Dictionary seems like a risky bet, but one that Mr. Levithan undeniably won.

When I started reading The Lover's Dictionary, I have to say I had my doubts. I'm the kind of reader who doesn't pay much attention to words themselves. You have probably noticed that in my reviews, I rarely quote from books and if I do, it's never a sentence and more a passage. So I have a tendency to take it away as a whole - feeling, story, etc. However, in the kind of books like The Lover's Dictionary, words seem to be so important and I was afraid I was going to miss something... but I don't think I did :)

The Lover's Dictionary is also a book where you have to glean for every piece and bits of information on everything: the relationships, the narrator, the lover, their personalities, etc. And once you have these information, you have to put it together to make a whole picture, kind of like a puzzle. I have to say I enjoyed that part more than I thought I would :) I also really enjoyed the ambiguity concerning the gender of the lover. To me, all these are proofs of how ingenious Mr. Levithan is with his writing :)

Any issues? It's not an issue per se, but obviously, at the end of the day, what the readers will remember most about The Lover's Dictionary is the concept of the book. The way The Lover's Dictionary is written and how the story unfolds, I think it's difficult to really connect with the characters. I mean, in the beginning, you're trying to figure out things and how everything connects, you're more focused on the definitions and less on the characters. Also, the fact that the narrator and the lover are anonymous creates a barrier in my opinion. I did feel for the narrator and I enjoyed reading his different feelings for every step of their relationship. His incertitude and doubts were heart-felt... but he's still a nameless face for me. As a result, it's really hard to get attached to him and get attached to the book on an emotional level and I think that will always be the flaw of this book.

My Grade? B. I did enjoy the book a lot and felt it was really refreshing, but as I said, there's a lack of emotional connection between me and the story and the characters, hence the grade. Still, The Lover's Dictionary is definitively worth a read; if not for the concept, then for Mr. Levithan's clever writing :)

Review: Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park

Hi! and sorry! LOL. I've been meaning to work on some reviews, but work has been busy. Okay, yes, yes, I've been engrossed in my reading as well. However, you know, when work is busy, all you want to do is relax, hence the reading. Anyway, we have a grant application deadline tomorrow and I'm giving some experiments a last go. It's pretty desperate when you want results from an experiment that has never been done to be included ^_^; After tomorrow, I'm hoping for some freedom!! Although quite frankly, I've had it easy compared to my two colleagues... what does that say about my lab?!?

Initially, I was going to do a two-fer, Dragon Bound and Storm's Heart... but yeah, instead I read Sean Griswold's Head and The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May and June. I guess I should be happy I'm at least reading!! Anyway, a two-fer is not realistic for today, so instead, I'm going with Flat-Out Love, especially since some of you have expressed some curiosity concerning the book :)

Enjoy!


Flat-Out Love by Jessica Park
published by Kindle in 2011

Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it.

When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.

And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul.

To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that... well... doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer.

Genre: Contemporary Young Adult Fiction
Series: -

The Story:  Hmmm, the blurb is very detailed and also, accurate, so I'm going to skip this part as I'm not going to add much :)

My Opinion: Flat-Out Love has been on my radar ever since Ms Heather Webber gave it a 5 stars on Goodreads. Unfortunately, it wasn't only available on Kindle. Then, a few months later, I checked it out again and lo and behold, it was now available in epub format! Hurrah! So I was really excited when I started reading the book.

I really liked the feel of the book. In Flat-Out Love, we follow Julie as she navigates through her first year of college and the Watkins dynamics. I really liked that the book spans several months. It gave the readers the opportunity to really get to know Julie as well as understand the dynamics of the Watkins and this was very important. Too often nowadays, plots and romance are rushed because of the timeline of a few days. So this was a definitive plus for Flat-Out Love. I also loved reading about Julie's college life - social such  as making new friends, starting new relationships, as well as academic - choosing classes, attending them, midterms, etc. Ms Park definitively did a great job at creating the right feel for the book.

Unfortunately, while I enjoyed reading about Julie's life, I didn't like the character itself as much as I wanted to ^_^; In truth, Julie is really a nice young woman. She's pretty mature, she's smart and enjoys college and the opportunity of learning, she cares about others and wants to help out... Like I said, a pretty nice young woman. What bothered me with her though is that I thought she cared too much about what other people thought and appearances. Not to the extent of high school where she's trying to fit in and be part of the cool crowd, but to the extent I felt she was a conformist. For example, the first impression she gets of Matt is that he's a geek based on his t-shirt... and that impression stayed with her very long. Simply because he'd rather stay home and play video games, hang out on forums, etc. instead of going out and hanging out with people. She took pity on Celeste because she wasn't acting like a regular teenager. Even herself, back in her hometown, she had to hide the fact that she liked school, enjoyed literature. Why? Is it wrong to be different? To enjoy different things? To be your own person? I don't think that Julie thought it was wrong per se, but some of her actions made it seems so. The other issue I had with Julie's character is I thought she was a bit meddlesome. I know she wanted to help and her intentions were sincere, but the fact is she didn't know what was going on and without that crucial information, what she did could have been harmful. Sometimes, helping consists of giving a hand and that's easy. However, as soon as you dwell into something more profound, you have to be careful. I think the part where Matt scolds Julie after Celeste's sleeping-party was correct. You cannot just swoop in and fix what you think is wrong with one fingers snap while there's someone who's been on the sideline the whole time, observing and helping at a slower pace. It was presumptuous on Julie's part and I'm glad Matt called her on it. Oh, I'm not saying that Julie didn't help Celeste out, because she did. I think that without Julie, Celeste would not have healed as fast and as I said, Julie's intentions were sincere... but yeah, I found Julie presumptuous and it bothered me a little. Otherwise though, I had no problem with Julie and I think Ms Park did a good job at making her realistic.

I really liked Matt. He could be considered as a beta hero. He's silent and a bit geeky, but he's there for you and has your back. He was also a very, very good brother and I liked that. I really felt for him at the end when he tells Julie the truth. It must have been such a weight on his shoulders and it says a lot that he could hold it together. I understand why Julie was hurt by Matt's actions and he admitted he knew it was wrong... However, given the circumstances, it was hard to be mad at him and begrudge him those moments where he could be himself.

I also really liked Celeste. She was an interesting character and crucial to the book. I liked her maturity and her mannerism :) I figured out quite early in Flat-Out Love what was the reason that Celeste was carrying a life-sized cardboard cutout of Finn... and I have to say I'm surprised Julie didn't.

There was a touch of romance in Flat-Out Love. Not the focus of the book, but one that was still quite satisfying and I think it's because of the timeline in the book. Since they knew each other, it was just more believable :)

My Grade: B. I wasn't sure when I started Flat-Out Love what kind of book it was. For some reasons, I thought it'd be a funny book ^_^; What I got was a solid, well-written book with well-developed and flawed characters and a story with a lot more depth than I expected. Based on the storyline, I'm not sure I would go back and re-read, but I would definitively read more by this author :)

Review: Welcome to Harmony by Jodi Thomas

I've realized that I've been complaining a lot about the job and I'm really sorry to bore you all with that ^_^; Instead of letting it beat me down though, I'm really going to try to put my stuff together and find my mojo again :D

Here is a review I've been meaning to write for a long time. I hope you all enjoy it :)

Welcome to Harmony by Jodi Thomas
published by Berkley in June 2010

Sixteen-year-old runaway Reagan has always wanted a place to belong. She's never had a real home of her own, but maybe she can borrow someone else's. At least for a little while...

At the nursing home where Reagan works, Miss Beverly Truman's fond memories of Harmony, Texas, seem to fill an empty space inside the girl. After Miss Beverly passes away, Reagan travels to Harmony, pretending to be the woman's granddaughter, and is taken into the home of Beverly's surviving brother.

Still, Reagan is afraid to trust the gruff kindness shown to her by Jeremiah Truman and the warm friendship offered by another teenager named Noah, who dreams of being a rodeo star. She keeps her distance from Noah's sister, Alex McAllen, who's the town sheriff and busy with her own stormy relationship with volunteer fire chief Hank Matheson.

But when prairie fires threaten Harmony, Reagan learns the true meaning of family, friends, and home...

Genre: contemporary romance
Series: Harmony, Book #1

The Story: The book is pretty much as described in the back blurb. Reagan is 16 with no family and no roots, but she longs for some. She had a friendship with Beverly Truman who shared the stories of her hometown with Reagan and after Beverly's death, Reagan decides to go to Harmony to find a home. Everyone ends up believing that she's a Truman and thus, she goes and lives with Jeremiah Truman, a lonely, gruff, difficult old man.

While Reagan makes herself at home, readers discover the little town of Harmony. Back in the days, there were three family founders: the Truman, the McAllen and the Matheson. All three families are still there, interacting with each other...

My Opinion: I fell in love with Ms Thomas writing after reading Twisted Creek (review here and here). I just loved that book, there was something about it... something very soothing :P After that, I devoured all of Ms Thomas contemporary books :)

I was so glad to hear about Welcome to Harmony. I was very much looking forward to it, especially as it got very good reviews from Holly and Tracy. Unfortunately, Welcome to Harmony didn't wow me as it did them. I wanted to love it so much... In the end, I still enjoyed it, but I thought something was missing. I think it has a lot to do with the fact this is the first book in a continuous trilogy. I'm guessing that perhaps if I read the three books one after the other instead of waiting, I would enjoy it a lot more.

Welcome to Harmony is not a contemporary romance per se. There is romance, but it's not the focus. Instead, Welcome to Harmony is all about the readers embarking on a journey to discover the town, its inhabitants and their relationships. A bit à la Debbie Macomber and Robyn Carr... but Ms Thomas brings in something different with her writing and voice. I feel like all the storylines meshed better.

I really liked Reagan. I thought she was a very brave girl, going after what she wanted... and she was willing to work for it, to make it work. I enjoyed her budding friendship with Noah and I'm really looking forward to see where it's going to lead. Noah was simply a sweet boy with dreams of his own :)

My favorite part of the story was Reagan's relationship with Jeremiah. Everyone considers him as a bitter, difficult man... but in truth, I think he's just lonely. Life hasn't been easy for him and when Reagan comes along, he doesn't ask her too many questions and just takes her under his wing. I loved those kind of relationships, because it proves that you make your own family. It is also always so touching to see a young person bond with an older one.

I'd say my least favorite part of the story was the relationship between Hank and Alex. I didn't like the way Alex acted out... It has to do with her older brother's death and yes, it hit her hard... but I don't know. Hank was a great guy and lucky for her, he never gave up on her. Poor man though, surrounded by women LOL. Loved his relationship with his niece, it was very telling... but I think he needs to be more strict with the others - his mom, aunts and sisters.

There is one last storyline involving Tyler, the funeral home director. I thought his storyline was very interesting. How life goes by something without you realizing it and there you are, 40 years old and all alone. I do hope it will work out for him. Sigh.

With Welcome to Harmony, Ms Thomas created a very interesting world and attaching characters. I liked how realistic it felt, although some aspects made me feel uncomfortable. Harmony is a small town and so, making a living can be difficult at time. Like Hank and Jeremiah, depending on their lands... and with fires raging, they can lose everything in a second. They live a very hard-working life... It usually doesn't hit you as much when the characters are professionals with careers... I mean, yes, they are broke, but you know they'll rebound. However, when people depend on lands and what they hunt... it's more difficult. So yes, I liked how realistic it was, but at the same time, I couldn't help but worrying about them and their future ^_^; I guess it says something about Ms Thomas writing :)

My Grade: B. Overall, I thought Welcome to Harmony was a solid opening to the trilogy. It was all about the town, its people and their interactions and Ms Thomas did a great job. I'm really looking forward to the next two books (Somewhere Along the Way is coming out in November). It didn't wow me liked I wanted, but I don't think it has anything to do with the world building or writing, but everything to do with it being the first book of a trilogy. While it ended on a positive note, you know there is a lot more to come... Sometimes, it doesn't matter when you read the next book in a series, but other time... it's better to read them all at once and that's how I felt about Welcome to Harmony.

Review: Almost Like Being in Love and My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger

I think 2010 is starting great so far :D It seems that my reviewing muse has come back and my blogging mojo as well and I've already have 2 books under my belt :) Not bad right?

Next, I'll have start working on a recap of 2009 and get back to Breezing Through... In the meantime though, I want to review two books that I've read and thoroughly enjoyed: Almost Like Being In Love and My Most Excellent Year, both by Steve Kluger.


Almost Like Being in Love by Steve Kluger
published by HarperCollins in April 2004

A high school jock and nerd fall in love senior year, only to part after an amazing summer of discovery to attend their respective colleges. They keep in touch at first, but then slowly drift apart.

Flash forward twenty years.

Travis and Craig both have great lives, careers, and loves. But something is missing... Travis is the first to figure it out. He's still in love with Craig, and come what may, he's going after the boy who captured his heart, even if it means forsaking his job, making a fool of himself, and entering the great unknown. Told in narrative, letters, checklists, and more, this is the must-read novel for anyone who's wondered what ever happened to that first great love.

Genre: Fiction (GLTB), contemporary
Series: none

The Story: I cannot summarize it better than the synopsis of the book. So I'm not going to try :)

My Opinion: This book first came to my attention a few months ago when Tracy reviewed it. I told myself I should get it and give a try, especially since my library had it (surprise!). Then, I was reminded to do so when Hilcia put up her own review. Two of my favorite bloggers loving this book... Seriously, what was I waiting for, right?

I do admit that the format of the book - narrative letters, checklists, e-mails, notes, etc. did put me off a little. This is definitively not my favorite style of books, but I'm soooo happy I decided to sit down and read it... because this is a gem!! This is a wonderful book: it's clever, funny and heart-warming.

Where to begin? First, I love Travis and Craig. These two are definitively great, unique characters. Credit goes to the author for not over-stereotyping them. Best example would be Craig... He is a jock, he does love sports, but he's not the tough, macho man. He's sensible and funny and it makes him more real. Of course, Travis and Craig are more sensible and close to their emotions than heterosexual men, but that's normal and not exactly a stereotype... I love how both were comfortable with their sexuality and never tried to deny it. Travis and Craig were at ease with who they were and I believe that made a difference in this book :) I love how unique Travis and Craig's voices were while I was reading the book... and oh, Travis' OCD behavior? Soooo cute LOL. It provided so much laughs :D

Surprisingly, Almost Like Being In Love was not exclusively Travis and Craig's story. Actually, I think these two only spent about 1/3 of the book together and that was mostly at the beginning, when they were in high school. It took a very long while before Travis and Craig reunited and that was a surprise, but in a good way. It made the book more powerful in my opinion... especially given that Craig was in a long-term relationship - 12 years!! And you can't help but like Craig's significant other, Clayton. He loves Craig deeply as well and is definitively committed to this relationship. He's a sweetheart, he's a great guy... and I was prepared to hate him. Seriously, whoever gets in between the H/H happy ending gets no love from Nath... but I just couldn't. He totally won me over... As a result, as a reader, I didn't know for what ending to root... Craig and Travis? Craig and Clay? I think I would have been happy for either ending and sad for the one who didn't end up with Craig. It was great from M. Kluger not to take the easy way out and make Clayton into a jerk. As a whole, this whole situation definitively makes the book better and the ending, more powerful. Almost Like Being in Love is really about love - first love, other love, love between friends... but still what marks me most is that Craig and Travis' first love wasn't just love, but there was a sense of belonging...

But I digress. I meant to say that Almost Like Being in Love has a great cast of secondary characters... from Clayton to Gordon, Travis' best friend. They are all lovable and a total riot LOL. There's a lot going on, interactions between Gordon and Travis, Travis and people he meets on his journey, Craig with his colleagues, Craig with his clients... and everything put together make them who they are.

And the best thing about this book is that it's fun. I LOLed so many times, I enjoy re-reading passages because they make me smile or chuckle. Today at lunch, I was talking about this book to my co-workers... and when S heard it was about two men, he made a face... and I tried to convince him that no, he should read this and give it a try... and I read passages to him and he changed his mind, he'd like to try it because it sounded fun. You cannot not fall for Travis' charm :)

My Grade: A-. Two reasons why I'm not giving this an A. 1) While it was fun to follow everything and everyone, there was a tiny bit too much going on and combined with 2) the epistolary format (yes, it did make the book stands out, but...), Almost Like Being in Love was at time a bit confusing. However, it's still a book that I strongly recommend :)


My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger
published by Penguin Young Reader Group in March 2008

There are only three great loves in T.C. Keller's life: the Red Sox, his father, and his best friend and unofficial "brother," Augie. But ninth grade is the year when he falls head-over -cleats in love with Alé Perez. She's pretty, sassy, smart, and a great dancer. Alé is so busy playing hard to get that she doesn't realize that she just might be falling head-over-tap shoes for T.C.'s Boston accent, too. Meanwhile, T.C.'s best friend, Augie, is falling in love as well, but with a boy? It ma not be so clear to him; but to the rest of his family and friends, it's totally obvious that Augie, who loves musicals and old school screen sirens such as Judy Garland, is head-over-hells in love with Andy Wexler.

Genre: Young Adult
Series: none

Story: Again, not going to try :P Read it to find everything out!

My Opinion: I loved Almost Like Being in Love so much that I had to find M. Kluger's backlist. This is his most recent release, My Most Excellent Year. At first, I was a bit disappointed that My Most Excellent Year was a YA novel. I have nothing against YA, I've read and enjoy some. However, I find that sometimes they don't emotionally satisfy me as much as much as romance books because it's hard to believe in a HEA ending when the characters are only 16 y.o... I should never had doubted M. Kluger, because My Most Excellent Year turned out to be, for me, an even better read than Almost Like Being in Love!

Again, I totally fell in love with the characters. T.C. and Augie are two very charming boys... T.C. is the regular cool kid, the popular one... but he's more vulnerable and sensitive and he's not afraid to show it. Part of it is because he lost his mother at a young age, another part would be due to Augie. Augie is just your diva teenager LOL, but in a good way. It's not that he is high maintenance as in wanting the latest cool clothes or wanting everyone's attention, it's just that he demands so much of himself and how he views his entourage. It also comes from his passion for musicals, it just makes him more sensible and prone to drama LOL.

For example:

"Mom? Dad? I'm gay." Oh, please. That is like SO pedestrian. What happened to my sense of style?! Maybe I'll throw a coming-out party. With a grand entrance down a staircase. "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night." No. Engraved coming-out announcements.

Know what I mean now? LOL.

These two boys have such good chemistry... they know each other so well. I wish there would have been more scenes of them together. Then you throw in a girl, who's smart and sassy... and you have the perfect three musketeers :D Alé was another great character. I thought she balanced out T.C. and Augie so well; she was the in-between, a real mix of T.C. and Augie :)

The story was simply so cute. Augie falling in love and discovering he was gay. T.C. trying to get the girl LOL. The side-story was T.C. discovering a little, deaf, 6 y.o. boy reminding him of Augie and who waited for Mary Poppins to come live with him. That story was very touching and it was nice to see teenagers care about something more than themselves.

Again, this book is about love, friendship, discovering yourself. I do think that sometimes, T.C., Augie, Alé and their friends act too mature or perhaps the way they talked and acted didn't totally fit teenagers. They were all a bit too accepting... like nobody bat an eye at Augie being gay - not his parents, not his grandparents (who are all Asians). Nobody at school made fun, everyone was soo supportive. This is how ideally life should be, but real life is not. So I thought it was bit too Cinderella-ish at times... still it didn't deem my enjoyment at all.

M. Kluger clearly has a passion for musicals and baseball (especially Red Sox) and a lot of topics are important to him and he doesn't hesitate to include them in his novels - Almost Like Being in Love, My Most Excellent Year and Last Days of Summer... It's quite incredible that he manages for his books to be so distinctive. I mean the subjects in Almost Like Being in Love and My Most Excellent Year are very similar, but I would never mistake one for the other. Of course, I would know they were written by the same author :) He has quite a distinctive style :) What I meant to say is that being passionate is a good thing, but at the same time, adding so much of it can be a bit overwhelming. I mean, my knowledge of musicals - zero. It's basically like Jennifer Crusie quoting movies in her books. It'd be great if he could take it to a lesser degree in his future books.

Still I love My Most Excellent Year... and I said it was better than Almost Like Being in Love because he takes all the strengths and positives of Almost Like Being in Love and scale it down. The story revolved around T.C., Augie and Alé; there are still some side-stories, but they don't detract as much as they did in Almost Like Being in Love. My Most Excellent Year is still written in an epistolary format, but there is a lot more narration from T.C., Augie and Alé, as we follow their diary entries. As a result, My Most Excellent Year flows better and is easier to read. Again, the book is fun, clever and heart-warming. You can't stop smiling while reading it... and because the story focuses more on Augie and T.C., you really feel the friendship between the two which takes it a step further.

My Grade: A. I simply love it... and I'll be reading everything by Steve Kluger I can put my hand on :) I hope he writes another book soon!

Review: Earthly Pleasures by Karen Neches

Earthly Pleasures by Karen Neches
published by Simon and Schuster in February 2008 (Tradesize paperback)

WELCOME TO HEAVEN

Welcome to Heaven. Use your Wishberry to hustle up whatever you want. Have an online chat with God. Visit the attractions such as Retail Rapture, Wrath of God miniature golf and Nocturnal Theater, where your nightly dreams are translated to film.

Your greeter might just be Skye Sebring who will advises her newly dead clients on what to expect now that they’re expired. “Heaven is like a Corona Beer commercial” she assures her clients. “It’s all about contentment.” So different than Earth where chaos reigns. Unfortunately for Skye, she’s been chosen to live her first life. She’s required to attend Earth 101 classes, which teach all of the world’s greatest philosophies through five Beatle songs.

Skye has no interest in Earthly pursuits, until lawyer Ryan Blaine briefly becomes her client after a motorcycle accident. Just as they are getting to know each other, he is revived and sent back to Earth. She follows his life via the TV channel “Earthly Pleasures” but discovers he has a wife as well as a big secret. Why then does he call a show for the lovelorn to talk about the lost love of his life?

Genre: Fiction, contemporary
Series: ---

The Story: Skye Sebring is a greeter in Heaven and has been chosen to go down and start a new life on Earth. Skye isn’t thrilled about this opportunity and tries to find out why she was chosen by SB (Supreme Being)… but she hits a wall, as it turns out her case is classified.

Meanwhile, Ryan Blaine, son of ex-president Blaine and lawyer, is having a trouble with his marriage. He married his fiancée in the hospital after she was in a car accident and between life and death; however, now that she has recovered, she is not the same woman anymore.

My Opinion: Basically, put the back blurb and my little summary together and I think you’ll be able to guess a bit about the storyline. I have to admit I was surprised about the Ryan’s wife storyline, but I didn’t read the back blurb… I picked up this book because of the author’s interview over at Laura Florand’s blog.

This novel is fiction with a love story in it, not a romance novel. I think that knowing this, I was able to enjoy the novel more as I wasn’t expecting a HEA ending (but there is one… sort of). So what did I think of the book? I enjoyed it, I like the author’s voice. The ideas were good and I loved Ryan. His love for Susan… it was incredible, in my opinion. It’s unfortunately we didn’t get to know Skye/Susan bit more… I think it would have been interesting.

As much as I enjoyed the book, there were flaws. First, the book too short and therefore, the author didn’t have time to develop the storyline and the characters fully. Also, the book was kept simple, but this kind of plot is not simple, it’s complex. You can’t make it simple… if you try, you end up missing something… which is what happened in this book. The book was well thought, but in the end, when the story is told and parts are connected together, it’s a bit of a stretch. If I would have been the author, I would have made a choice: either focus on Skye coming down to Earth from Heaven and falling in love with Ryan or the plot about Ryan’s marriage. Finally, the ending was a bit too open for my taste. Granted, it was “happy,” but still too open.

If there was a sequel to this book so the author could tie up the loose ends, I think it’d be perfect and I would for sure read it.

My Grade: B-