It’s our first launch week on The Ball! Break out of the champagne! (Unless, of course, it’s morning when you’re reading this. In that case, break out the champagne and orange juice!)
This week we’re celebrating the launch of Shelly King’s THE MOMENT OF EVERYTHING — a beautiful, funny, unputdownable read that will resonate with book lovers everywhere.
I devoured it in two days, but when I love a book, it’s sometimes hard to put it into words why. When gushing about my favorite books, you’ll often hear me say: “You just have to read it. Trust me.” But since that would make for a very short blog post, I’m going to delve into five of the reasons I love this book (and if you’re anything like me, then you’ll love it for these reasons too — and you haven’t been able to stop thinking about champagne since I mentioned it in the second sentence).
1. It’s set in a cozy bookstore. What book lover doesn’t love a fantastic independent bookstore? Shelly perfectly paints the scene at Dragonfly Used Books, the place where her protagonist Maggie spends all her free time (which she now has a lot of since she’s been “involuntarily separated from payroll” at her Silicon Valley gig). I could picture the disorganized aisles (see picture to the left), smell the old, papery books and longed to curl up on the comfy, worn seats with my own favorite books. You’ll fall in love with the store, I promise.
2. The Southern Backdrop. Maggie (like Shelly herself) grew up in a little town in South Carolina and SO DID I. I could just hear Maggie’s mother’s lovely accent on the other end of the phone and laughed out loud at the Southern truisms peppered throughout.
3. It’s witty. If you don’t like fast, funny, intelligent dialogue, this book probably isn’t for you. ‘Nuff said.
4. It made me feel better about how I feel about Lady Chatterly’s Lover. The first time (and only time) I read Lady Chatterly’s Lover (about six years ago), I hated it. I had heard it was this steamy, erotic book (I means, seriously — look at the cover), but plunging through the thousands of SAT words and old English strung together just left me feeling less than turned on. In THE MOMENT OF EVERYTHING, Maggie finds love notes that were written back and forth between two people in a very old copy of Lady Chatterly’s Lover (which is the crux of the plot), but she also discusses the book at a book club meeting — and I could not stop laughing. Most of the members basically regurgitate criticisms and observations they found on the Internet, meaning most people don’t get the book. It’s exactly how I would have handled it. But also, strangely, now I want to go back and re-read the book because I get the feeling there are a few things I missed— and who knows? Maybe I’d feel differently about it now.
5. The ending. I’m not a fan of when everything ties up neatly with a little bow. This book doesn’t do that (yay!), but it does have a very satisfying ending. But I’m not giving anything away — you’ll just have to read it for yourself.
Thanks, Colleen! I’m so glad you liked it. And yes, give LCL another chance. It’s not my favorite book by any means (there’s a long explanation of why I choose it that I’ll share later), but I have a much higher appreciation for it now.
I loved everything about the book store too, down to the grumpy cat and squashy furniture. I wish I had someplace nearby like that so I could haunt it!
I wish this was a real bookstore…in my neighbourhood! But I’d have to switch out the cat for a dog — allergies and all that stuff 🙂