Romeo Revisited: No-Show and Tell Spell

It's been awhile since I read a book that made me want to review it.  But as soon as I started Beth O' Leary's The No-Show, I couldn't wait to get started.

Three very different women are stood up by the same man on Valentine's Day.  And by all accounts, Joseph Carter fits the bill of the loathsome Lothario.  Hiding behind the guise of a bumbling nice guy, he makes and breaks plans with Siobhan, Miranda, and Jane.  Each woman is likeable and sympathetic, and I didn't want any of them to end up in Carter's clutches.  That said, the premise is romcom gold, giving us a classic player who needs only the love of a good woman -- and perhaps a makeover montage -- to see the error of his ways.  But The No-Show isn't that story.  The characters are complex and flawed, and the deceptively simple plot sparkles with twists and pockets of darkness.  If I didn't have a job and a baby, then I would've read it through without stopping.  Because there are few things that intrigue me quite like the mystery of a romantic what-if.

Especially when the guy known as the no-show keeps popping up everywhere.

When Life's Got You Stressed, Grandmother Knows Best

When Londoner Leena Cotton has a panic attack that causes her to bungle a big work presentation, HR mandates that she take two months vacation.  Meanwhile, her seventy-nine-year-old grandmother Eileen, who lives in Yorkshire, is coming to grips with her husband deserting her for a dance instructor.  What are two such stressed souls to do?  Why, swap houses for two months, of course!  At least that's what happens in Beth O'Leary's The Switch, my most recent book club pick.  

The city mouse/country mouse trope always tugs at my heartstrings, pitting the glamour and excitement of urban life against quieter, pastoral pleasures.  It's a premise more complicated than it seems, as both settings represent what the characters want -- and don't want -- out of life.  This is certainly the case in The Switch.  Because in addition to dealing with their individual dramas, Leena and Eileen are still grieving the loss of their sister and granddaughter Carla.  So to distract themselves -- and also give back -- they set out to improve the lives of their new neighbors.  For Leena, this means chairing the Neighborhood Watch, a group of (mostly) young-at-heart oldsters more concerned with socializing than fighting crime.  Of course, there's one twenty-something member, a strapping single father and teacher who's miles nicer than Leena's sod of a boyfriend.  As for Eileen, meeting a fascinating but lonely elderly woman in Leena's apartment motivates her to organize a seniors group.  But Eileen's not all altruism all the time.  Her London adventure, as she's come to call it, includes online dating, an experiment that nets her a situationship with, among others, a silver fox actor.

Leena's and Eileen's struggles are sometimes funny and sometimes sad, but always relatable.  I could identify with their fish-out-of-water feelings and found Eileen especially delightful.  Her determination and wisdom are at the heart of this feel-good story.  Plus, she really rocks culottes.  When I'm eighty, I can only hope to be half as brave.  Indeed, both Eileen's and Leena's journeys show that sometimes a change of scenery can change so much more. 

So the next time someone asks you to housesit, don't be so quick to come up with an excuse.  

At least not until you've scoped out the neighbors.

My Book Club, My Boyfriend

They say that if you have a boyfriend, then you don't need a book club.  And that if you have a book club, then you don't need a boyfriend.  Okay, so no one says either of those things.  But I can see how someone might, given the therapeutic qualities of good books and men.  It makes me think of the Waldenbooks Valentine's ad that stole my heart back in the day: "Books don't care when you read other other books."  So titillating, yet so profound.  

Speaking of which, I recently read two books back to back, and neither one batted an eye.

First, there was Beth O'Leary's The Road Trip.  A dark rom com complicated by a codependent bromance, it's hilarious and heartbreaking, with an undercurrent of the absurd.  It's also unexpectedly layered, and as such, a ride you won't soon forget.

Then there was Leslie Meier's Valentine Candy Murder, a two-for-one special containing Valentine Murder and Chocolate Covered Murder in one festive pink package.  These whodunits are more conventional than The Road Trip -- if you consider crime conventional.  Which I do, at least within the confines of a cartoonish cozy.

The point is, it's important to read different genres at different times to get what you need.  Sometimes life calls for a romance.  Or a mystery.  Or a memoir by an arachnophobic zookeeper.  That's why, even if you have the best boyfriend this side of Bridgerton, you should join a book club.  I mean this, of course, metaphorically.  You know better than to think that I advocate socializing over escaping into a page turner solo.

Crazy or not, Thoreau was on to something.