It Ends With Us

 

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover is a book about domestic abuse. In my opinion, the author’s writing style doesn’t meld well with the intensity of the dark subject matter.

For instance, throughout most of the book, I was put off by the cringe-y sex scenes and cotton-candy dialogue like, “You warned me. You said one time with you wouldn’t be enough. You said you were like a drug. But you failed to tell me you were the most addictive kind.” 🤮 How could that kind of cheesy writing coexist with such a weighty topic as domestic violence?

I was hoping for something a bit grittier than “…she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon …everything in Lily’s life seems almost too good to be true.”

I’m always leery of anything “too good to be true” in literature because it doesn’t reflect reality. Also, I think it’s lazy for a writer to cop out on developing compelling characters. Why does Lily have to be perfect, sexy, beautiful, and a successful business woman who, naturally, meets a gorgeous neurosurgeon? Would her pain be any less profound if she was a slightly chubby office clerk just trying to get by who starts a relationship with an average-looking electrical engineer? 

Incredibly, another key character is a gourmet chef who owns his own prosperous restaurant. And then there’s the filthy rich couple with no jobs who live in a penthouse apartment suite in the city.

I prefer reading about REAL characters who are relatable and three-dimensional. That said, here are some quotes from the book that actually struck a chord with me:

“All humans make mistakes. What determines a person’s character aren’t the mistakes we make. It’s how we take those mistakes and turn them into lessons rather than excuses.”

“I wanted to be more prepared for this conversation because I absolutely hate confrontation.”

“Sometimes parents have to work through their differences and bring a level of maturity into a situation in order to do what’s best for their child.”

“There is no such thing as bad people. We’re all just people who sometimes do bad things.”

Regarding my critique of the author’s writing style, I was also distracted by her repetitive use of the same cliched descriptions. There must be another way to say that a character “blows out a quick breath” when preparing to speak or that he was comforting me by “brushing his thumb back and forth” on my stomach/arm/cheek. These phrases were used so often that I found myself sighing, ‘Not again with the quick breaths and brushing thumbs!?’ 

Luckily the insightful ending redeemed this book for me and bumped my rating from 3 to 4 stars. These are some of my take-aways from the last chapter that brought substance to the theme for me:

“And as hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.”

“Cycles exist because they are excruciating to break. It takes an astronomical amount of pain and courage to disrupt a familiar pattern. Sometimes it seems easier to just keep running in the same familiar circles, rather than facing the fear of jumping and possibly not landing on your feet.”

Finally, the coup de grace, “It stops here. With me and you. It ends with us.”

God help me, I’m about to watch the movie on Prime and then read the next installment, It Starts With Us. (Thank you to my Mexican wedding party cohort for catching me up on the hype surrounding this author and to Kt for providing me with copies of the two books in this series.)

Big Magic

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, is like a pep rally in book form. 

Her words inspire me to just keep writing every day now that I’m retired and there’s a bit more space in my head for creativity.

Even when it feels like every word I write is drivel, the process of getting it out is worthwhile for my mental health. And as Gilbert suggests. “It is fun!” For me, it’s also good practice playing with words and experimenting with my voice.

Interestingly, I read the book in tandem on my kindle and a paperback copy I bought for cheap on Amazon. I like having a hard copy that I can mark up and refer back to on my “empty brain” days, which oddly enough have been few and far between since  I stopped teaching.

I love that Gilbert cautions against the perfectionism trap. It’s good advice for the over-zealous editor in me. She also suggests, “Just keep busy,” when inspiration evades us. I’m a huge believer that movement stimulates creative ideas.

Gilbert’s humor infuses Big Magic, and her metaphors for the creative process really resonate with me. In a chapter titled, “Have an Affair,” she compares writing to a brief  clandestine meet-up that is sometimes all sneaky lovers can make happen. “Stop treating your creativity like it’s a tired, old, unhappy marriage (a grind, a drag) and start regarding it with the fresh eyes of a passionate lover,” she writes. “Even if you have only fifteen minutes a day in a stairwell alone with your creativity, take it.”

Moloka’i

Moloka’i by Alan Brennert is a well-researched historical fiction novel covering the time period that Hawaii became a state through World War II. It focuses on the establishment of  a leper colony on the island of Moloka’i. 

Leprosy and the treatment of the disease in the past is a fascinating but gruesome topic. This book also explores the Hawaiian/Japanese connection and the horrifying internment of Japanese Americans after the war. 

This book was recommended by Te Fitz in Mexico. I was able to get it for free through Kindle Unlimited before I canceled the subscription that came with the new device my kids got me for my retirement!

The Covenant of Water

So my performance with The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese should win me an award for “taking the longest time to read an interesting and compelling book”! Along with Cutting for Stone, his previous bestseller, this author was recommended to me by my physical therapist friend Sue. 

Fun fact: Sue actually found, not just a type-o, but a factual error, in this book, and contacted the author online about it! It had something to do with specific names of bones in the leg. Nerds of a feather ;)

Anyway, whenever I read long books like this one and especially when it takes me f o r e v e r to read, my inner editor always emerges. I’m probably being too judgmental because this book is beloved, but for me the transitions between people and time periods felt awkward.

I loved that I learned a bit about India reading this book—its history and British colonization. I also loved being immersed in the feelings and perspectives of the iconic main characters, especially Bug Mama. Finally, I loved dragging this book with me through the last months of my teaching career. It was like a warm embrace returning each night to this story after grueling days at work. 

This is how long it took me to finish this epic novel. In the end, I just bought a digital copy so I could finish reading it in peace without CLAMS harassing me.

 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. There’s something about her writing style that I love AND hate. It’s easy, like comfort food. It has a certain appeal but isn’t nourishing. I liked this story  more than Malibu Rising, but I’m not inclined to indulge in this author again.

Little Monsters/Wild Game

Adrienne Brodeur is an author with a connection to Cape Cod. I started reading her memoir, Wild Game, which oddly enough documents her unorthodox relationship with her mother, while I was waiting for her novel Little Monsters to become available. I like her writing style which is descriptive but not overblown. 

Finally Little Monsters arrived on my kindle, and I took it to jury duty on December 20, 2023. (That’s a story for another day! Warning: it involves a transvestite lawyer drunk driving, and an overcrowded, pre-holiday courthouse.) 

Fast forward to Saturday of the glorious MLK long weekend, I finished reading about the hellishly dysfunctional Gardner family on a day that began with a blustery thunderstorm that morphed into a balmy, windswept, blue-sky day.

Now I can get back to Wild Game: My Mother, Her Secret, and Me and reawaken some “mama trauma” of my own.

What makes this book so disturbing is that it recounts a true story. The people are real, and their actions are appalling. Here is the author's mother’s obituary from the Cape Cod Times.

Two Women Walk Into A Bar

Two Women Walk Into A Bar Is a very short book by Cheryl Strayed that memorializes her relationship with her mother in law. It was offered free to Prime members in Kindle, and I read it in less than an hour. Strayed’s is definitely the style of writing I aspire to, and this short memoir reminded me of the QuigleyWorld blog posts I wrote about my parents’ deaths. 

The kids gave Stu and I a StoryWorth subscription for Christmas this year. I’m excited, and a little intimidated, to get started. Maybe writing will sustain me after I retire next year. God I hope so!