Tag Archives: adults

Loved: Book Review

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Book Review #20: Loved

Author: Kimberly Novosel

Genre: Fiction

Days to Read: 1 week

Companion Tea: Chamomile

Synopsis (as taken from Barnes & Noble):

Kim Carlson is a quiet, optimistic dreamer when she trades in the golden fields of her youth for the busy big city streets of her future. She leaves behind a life of Sunday mass, good friends and homework for a world where skipping class, drinking, and friends who leave her alone on her birthday are the norm. On the road to building a career in the music industry and searching for true love, she instead finds loneliness, betrayal and heartache.

Just as she falls in love with the kind of man who would never break her heart and things are falling delightfully into place, everything is torn apart “like a shack in a hurricane.” Kim is faced with a choice: quit believing in the possibility of love and happiness, or fight for the woman she wants to be and the love she wants to have. Kim overcomes each setback with increasing grace and wisdom, proving that sometimes the wrong choices can lead us to the right places.

My Thoughts: You may remember back in the summer I interviewed Kimberly as a preview to her debut novel. And I was pleased to see the enchanting lady I spoke with translated onto the pages of her book.

As a backer for her book, I received a copy from her in the mail to read. Finally as exams passed and the busy holidays were winding down, I settled into Loved, anxious to see what it was all about. From the prologue, I was hooked. Having been let down at my most recent birthday party (less than half of the people who promised to come showed up), I could instantly relate to protagonist Kim’s 20th birthday party experience. Having such a low turn out to an event that means a lot to you puts everything into perspective and makes you re-think everything — am I really liked? Have I offended anyone as of late? Why doesn’t anyone care about me like they care about others? All those questions rush through your mind and it’s hard to see yourself for who you really are.

But as the story moved along, I began finding it harder and harder to relate to Kim. As each relationship began with vigour and got lost in the dust, I started feeling sorry for Kim. She put so much of herself into finding her other half, that she lost sight of who she was. I’ve never been in that type of situation before. Sure, I’ve had failed relationships — but none of them lasted longer than three weeks, so I didn’t have as much of an emotional connection to them as Kim did. As she went from guy to guy, I started feeling less and less sorry for her. There is nothing wrong with being single and being yourself, and yet she just couldn’t understand that. It frustrated me and I started dreading what she’d get herself into next. Maybe I’ve just been lucky — I’ve only had one serious boyfriend that I’m currently with — but I ended up not relating to Kim as much as I had wanted to, which saddened me. I had been looking so forward to seeing myself in Kimberly’s book, just as other readers had done, but that just wasn’t happening. I also couldn’t relate to the whole religious side of the book. I am by no means a Catholic like Kim, so when she referred to God or talked about the bible, etc., I couldn’t jump on the boat and pray with her. As much as I wanted to.

Characters and religion aside though, I loved Novosel’s writing style. She has such an easy, fluent and engaging voice, that even though I couldn’t relate to Kim, I still wanted to read. I’m also a big visual person — I often choose books based on their book covers alone, and I would have chosen this book had I come across it at a book store. It’s simple and yet inviting, but doesn’t give away too much. Novosel offers a fresh take on the age-old “love yourself” campaign, and it didn’t feel forced. It felt real. I loved the fact that the story didn’t end happily ever after; instead it had a satisfying, and yet unsatisfying, ending. Much like life. Life isn’t cookie-cutter or perfect or “happily ever after.” It’s always evolving — going from person-to-person, job-to-job, city-to-city — always bringing you one step closer to a finale. And like Novosel explains, sometimes in the end all you really need to do is love yourself.

Favourite Quotes:

“Unfortunately, he still hadn’t asked for my number, or a date, or my hand in marriage, and my drink was getting low.”

“I was girly and friendly and my family life was happy but many days I felt like I was on the inside what Chase was on the outside. I always believed I was a happy person with a sad soul. I felt like I had had tragedy in my life when I hadn’t. Somehow, without having experienced what he had, his scars resonated with me.”

“I thought about how the past can become so small. An entire day, 24 separate, heavy hours, becomes the size of a tiny brown leaf falling from a tree. Before you know it, a whole year is just a pile of dead leaves on the ground. The year or so I’d spent in love with Chad was starting to feel so long ago, swept away by the wind. I knew that this year would soon feel far away too.”

My Rating: 7.5/10

“Date a Girl Who Reads” by Rosemarie Urquico

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“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

Sing Your Praise for Thee

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For any of you who don’t know (aka, for anyone who’s been living under a rock since this morning), the world was given great news today. And no, I’m not talking about The Jersey Shore being cancelled (oh, if only).

I’m talking about the greatest thing to happen to us since J.K. Rowling last graced us with her ingenious series Harry Potter. A release date and title has finally been given for her newest adult novel that she promises will have no magic in it whatsoever. Tear.

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Our Lord and Saviour

So here’s the lowdown –
Title: The Casual Vacancy
Release date: September 27, 2012
Synopsis (courtesy of Little, Brown Book Group): When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.

Are you as excited as I am? You better be!