Llew's Reviews

Preparing For Christmas Season In The Harried Book World: Book #10

“Belong To Me is a portrait of suburban assimilation filled with heart, laughter, and recognition. Marisa de los Santos manages to write about the funny, awkward situations that so many of us have endured, while creating characters as real as your own next-door neighbors.” – Danielle Marshall Indie Bound’s Indie Next List April 2008

Look it’s Desperate Housewives: The novel

Not badly done, just not my thing. For those who do like family drama chick lit it’s something worth checking out.

When this first came out, I swooped it up incredibly excited to read it since I had really liked Sittenfeld’s first book. Or at least, I had adored the first half of, “Prep.” The ending was unsatisfying but I will forgive such things for a first novel.

However, I couldn’t even get past the first chapter of this one so I put it down and completely forgot about it. Until, the other day when a former co-worker raved about it to me while commenting that it had reminded her of me. Of course, she made this into an insult by saying, “The woman is just desperately searching for the man of her dreams.”

I might have never had a boyfriend until I was 26, but I had mostly been quite content with that. In fact, after deciding I actually wanted a serious exclusive relationship I began my current one within just a few weeks of tying up all entanglements. There was no long time of pining for a serious relationship. Pining, yes, but just because I do love a good long sigh while swinging my legs back and forth wistfully. However, I’m southern and my family is Mormon so the fact that I’m unmarried at 29, boyfriend or not, puts me into the category where I OBVIOUSLY desperately want to be wed but I am too useless to figure out how to catch me a man.

Even though the comment made me bristle, I went ahead and picked up the book. I just skipped rereading the part that had turned me off and started at Chapter 2 where my bookmark was. (I’m a mood-reader so it is very common for me to set a book down after a few pages if I’m just not in the mood for it. I’m kind of lazy because I figure there’s so many books out there that one has to fit what I want at that moment without me having to work for it by plugging through page after page even when I’m not enjoying what I’m reading.) Immediately, I loved it. I no longer take offense at what my former co-worker said because that main character was me. Not exactly, I’m not so hopeless relationship wise. However, I know I’ve thought and made some of those very same statements to myself and the running unconscious self depreciating dialogue is quite on target.

I have no idea whether this qualifies as chick lit though. Good gracious, I hope not. Not because I have disdain for chick-lit but if that what most of my inner dialogue is defined as I might be found out and forced to read Austen or some such non-sense.

*Shudders*

Oh, I loved this one and could kick myself for not having read it sooner (seeing as I’ve owned it for years now). I love the story of her courtship with her husband based entirely around food with recipes followed by explanations of, “This is just an excuse to eat mayonnaise.”

Snow Flower and The Secret Fan made me physically ill, and I loved every incredible moment of it.

There were several topics covered in this novel which I wasn’t very aware of. The first was footbinding which I, naturally, had heard of but wasn’t well versed in the details. My stomach is too weak for it so I have no idea how those women’s feet handle it. Although, the maxim of the women during this time period in China was that pain tempers people into who they should become, and into beauty itself.

Nu Shu, the secret written language of the women in China, is another subject which I am woefully ignorant in. The story centered on the lives of two girls who seal into a contract to be lifelong best friends in rural China. It touches on the universal trials which trouble most close relationships between women, as the characters suffer through plagues, rebellions, children, and marriage. (Although I suppose the first two are the same as the last two, heh).

In the end, it was one of the most enchanting recent novels I have read in a very long time. It is not a happy story, and consequently, there is not a happy ending. But the substance of it by far exceeds any need for it.