I'm going to tell you something good. ME BEFORE YOU, an unconventional love story about a quadriplegic and his caregiver, is life-affirming rather than depressing. At its end, you won't be thinking about updating your will; you'll be adding adventures to your bucket list.
Louisa Clark is content with her small life: a waitress job at the Buttered Bun, a boyfriend who's more interested in training for a marathon than spending time with her, and parents who put her younger sister first.
Will Traynor is a business mogul who enjoys extreme sports, far-flung travel, and his pick of beautiful women. He lives large until a motorcyclist runs him down, leaving a man who once scaled Kilimanjaro unable to feed himself.
The Buttered Bun closes its doors and puts Lou out of work. When she's hired to be Will's "carer" and work alongside his medical assistant for six months, she's squeamish, but the pay's too good to refuse. After all, she and her Dad are the family's chief wage-earners, and his job could disappear at any moment.
Will's bitter and sarcastic. Lou, a people-person, is talkative and says what she thinks, at least to him.
When Lou realizes Will has given up on life, she devises outings and activities to entertain him. Will, in turn, plays Pygmalion and browbeats her into an interest in books and music.
Although each tries to change the other in some way, Will appreciates Lou's quirkiness, and she gets his humor. He's the one who helps her come to terms with a long-ago event that cost her her fearlessness. She helps him face the wedding of the woman he loved.
But Lou's contract is set to expire at the end of six months for a reason, and that reason will test her and her newfound fearlessness. She'll have to decide what she can and can't do for love.
If tough work weeks make you crave escapist reads, know I understand. Right now, though, I am nurturing joy (the best escape!) for the bigger life that awaits Lou. By the book's end, I believe you will, too.
This post is about the authors whose books accompanied me through turning points, pulled me out of down times, and waltzed with me when things went well.
A post that promises to be long and winding deserves a soundtrack, don't you think? I give you the people of Open Books, a non-profit that promotes literacy and runs a bookstore in Chicago. They want to encourage those of us who've grown overfond of our e-readers to get out, browse the shelves, and pick up a print book.
(Feel free to bust a move as you read on.) Earlier this month, Patricia Rickrode, who writes as Jansen Schmidt, gave me the Booker Award (not to be confused with the Man Booker Prize, ha!). Patricia also threw down a challenge: name my five favorite books and nominate three other bloggers for the award.
No way could I narrow down my favorite books to five, so I'm doing what Patricia did: naming influential authors. Each of my five taught me something/gave me something I needed at a particular point in my life. Just as a certain scarf, scent, or piece of jewelry evokes a particular time and place for me, so do these writers.
Mary Stewart – I must have been fourteen or fifteen when I discovered Mary Stewart and THE MOON SPINNERS. The windmill on the cover and exotic setting of Crete hooked me. Most of all, I remember a scene in which the hero and heroine drag themselves from the water. The heroine was wearing a bathing suit, but when she and the hero embraced, she thinks, "We might as well have been naked." That sentence switched on my sexuality. One minute I was a kid, and the next, I wasn't. While I loved THIS ROUGH MAGIC and AIRS ABOVE THE GROUND, and MY BROTHER MICHAEL, THE MOON SPINNERS was my first Stewart and is unforgettable because it opened me to possibility. An ordinary (although lovely and plucky) woman could stumble into and get herself out of danger--while falling in love. Stewart's settings also gave me a permanent hunger for travel.
Maeve Binchy – I'd been an English major in college, which meant I read so much literary fiction, I forgot why I liked to read. My mother passed along Maeve Binchy's first book, LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE, published thirty-two years ago. Binchy pulled me out of my mired-in-first-job funk and reminded me why I enjoy slipping into the lives of others and experiencing their problems, adventures, and triumphs. Binchy's books would accompany me through motherhood, two careers, and inspire me to write fiction.
Nora Roberts – I was a mom, working at a job that valued repartee, cynicism, and zeal for working long hours. Alas, I'm lousy at repartee, passed skepticism but failed at cynicism, and was wracked with guilt over the hours spent away from my family. Enter Nora Roberts. The first novel I read might have been SACRED SINS in 1987. Her stories offered escape, a fast pace, and lean prose—all appreciated by a working mom with little free time.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips – HEAVEN, TEXAS wasn't Susan Elizabeth Phillips' first book but was the first of hers I read. It was released in paperback in April, 1995, the month and year my then-employer, The Houston Post, printed its last newspaper. If one finds herself in unemployment hell, a feel-good story is as necessary as food and water. SEP came through for me again eleven years ago this week. After the TwinTowers fell, I turned to THIS HEART OF MINE. The story's heroine is a children's book author, and I clung to Daphne the Bunny and Benny the Badger as much as I leaned on the church-camp-turned-B&B setting with its pastel cottages and water views. This book was an emotional refuge for me, and I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd finish it one evening and re-start it the next.
My choice for writer number five is many writers. During Houston's hot, humid summers, I count on British and Irish writers for relief. Why? Cool, rainy settings refresh me when my front lawn is so dry it crackles. When the temps are in the nineties, I want books from Marian Keyes, Lucy Dillon, Maggie O'Farrell, Jojo Moyes, Marcia Willett, and the list goes on and on.
Ihaven't singled out favorite Houston-based writers, favorite writers I know personally, or favorite writers I've taken classes from because it's so hard to pick and choose from those groups, I didn't try.
The Booker Award goes to the following bloggers: Lark Haward of THIS blog, Kay Hudson, and Karen McFarland. It never expires, so there's no pressure to post about it anytime soon.
Readers, your turn. What writer or book provided inpiration, comfort, or a kick in the pants at a particular point in your life?
Last night I finished THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER by JojoMoyes and knew I needed to recommend it to anyone looking for a lovely read over the upcoming holiday weekend.
The story follows two “heroines” forty years apart. Jennifer is the wife of a wealthy London businessman in 1960 who falls in love with a journalist while summering on the French Riviera. Ellie is a high-powered journalist in 2003’s London who is having an affair with a famous and very married author. Their paths intersect when Ellie finds a heart-breaking love letter and sets out to discover the story behind it.
The contrast between Jennifer’s world and its oppressive restrictions on women and Ellie’s world where her social freedom creates its own emotional barriers is one of the themes that lifts this story beyond the typical love story and makes it memorable. And the writing is good! Go to your nearest independent bookstore today (plug for the indies who support us!) and get a copy!
My husband went out of town for a few days last month, and I held a girl-night-in party every evening of his trip. Neither men nor martinis were harmed during his time away: I watched movies, read books, and got hooked on a television show recommended by Younger Daughter.
Movies with too much pondering and not enough plot put my guy to sleep. He doesn’t find romantic comedies particularly funny, and he’s bitter that I put Black Swan into our Netflix queue.
While the Swan-hater wasn’t around, I re-watched Love Actually and The Holiday, and saw Eat, Pray, Love, all thanks to Netflix. The three movies proved a fun, zesty treat-- the zero-calorie equivalent of Key Lime pie.( Love Actually might be more like Sticky Toffee Pudding, a dessert I adore. Look for it at the menu at Feast in Houston.)
My night-time reading included Jojo Moyes’ The Last Letter from Your Lover, a touching, heart-breaking read. The letters from fictional Anthony O’Hare made me swoon, but neither lamps nor small breakables were harmed.
When Younger Daughter told me I had to watch TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress, I thought she was hinting at an upcoming wedding. Wrong. She thought I’d like the internal and external conflicts brides-to-be and their families and friends take to the bridal shop when hunting for dream wedding dresses.
Thanks to Younger Daughter, I’ve gotten half a ream of ideas from the show. Some moms chip, chip, chip away a their daughters’ self-esteem, some bridesmaids hijack attention from the bride-to-be, and for every Bridezilla, there’s a girl who’s reluctant to claim as much as five minutes of limelight for herself. The program’s a mother lode for writers of women’s fiction.
After a few days of girl time, I was ready for ESPN. Marriage is about compromise, a shared remote control, and separate lights for reading in bed.
What movies, books, TV shows are your favorite indulgences?
