And on her way to Florida and her mother and the end of the conversation, she meets some people - including a grandmother who "has that look, like someone who likes to care about other people for no reason at all," a runaway middle-schooler, a teenage mother/waitress who hardly leaves her small town despite sometimes feeling "hungry, almost burning, though she knew no food would be satisfying," a quiet man with a name that seems too ordinary. They are strangers with their own stories of love and strangers who manage to reach Natalie in a way that family and friends don't:
It means connection. And that's just about all there is in this life, I think. Even the very temporary, even the transient, even the people who you are never going to see again but who exist because we need them to, because we are human.
And that, I believe, is the truth that brings this story together and leads Natalie to her answers, or maybe non-answers. I liked this story of a girl who is perceptive and open enough to let strangers bring meaning to her own thoughts. It feels authentic. I care about and root for Natalie as she struggles through yet another pregnancy scare from her on/off boyfriend, a fight she had with her best friend Sarah, and the horrible thought that gnaws at her heart: that she is "a girl whose mother had chosen to leave her, who had not wanted her. Whose mother had walked out the door one night and never came back."
This is not a book with a lot of comic relief (although it has its few moments) and maybe that’s why my cheese detector started wailing – mostly at the end of the story, which seemed just a bit too heavy with earnest, epiphanous moments. I kept having to put the book down just so my brain could breathe.
But I certainly don’t think anyone would argue with my kudos to Nora Raleigh Baskin’s excellent writing.
Book Information:
TITLE: All We Know of Love
AUTHOR: Nora Raleigh Baskin
ISBN: 1406315516
PAGES: 208
PUBLISHER: Walker Books Ltd
Interesting. The plot sounds rather contrived to me... But then again, I can swallow a lot if a book is compelling. (I mean, HELLO TWILIGHT?)
ReplyDeleteBased on your description of the book, and the couple of quotes from it, I think I'd need brain breathing breaks after every page! I don't think that's a bad thing - it just sounds dense with things that make you need to think about them for a while before moving on.
ReplyDeleteAs a person who talks to strangers and listens to their life stories, I think I'm going to read this book. I still haven't gotten a new york public library card, but I should do that soon.
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