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A review by deborah_ann
The Bookseller by Cynthia Swanson
4.0
A 'Sliding Doors' type story. A single, 30 year old co-owner of a bookstore starts having vivid dreams of being married with children.
Kitty's single life seems a little sad; everyday the same, spending all her time with her cat and with Frieda, her bff from her school days and co-owner of the bookstore that hardly anyone shops, no boyfriend and a deep attachment to her parents at the age of 30. Reading this, you just wanted something more for her.
Every night Kitty has dreams about being 'Kathryn', married with children and yet this life has challenges too. In this world, she has a violent, autistic son that she homeschools.
A great story that explores "what if" circumstances had been just a little different.
Lots of discussion material in this one!
SPOILER STARTS BELOW:
The story tension comes from building confusion over which life is a dream and which is reality. In the end, Kitty wakes up to the reality that everything in her single life is just a little too easy, a little too convenient. She slowly hints about this reality when she realizes that she is missing whole days in her single life that she can't account for. What's unique about this story is that there are no traditional villains in this book - the real villain is Kitty's grief over losing her parents who die suddenly in a plane crash & losing the friendship of her bff and co-bookstore owner, Frieda, and the challenges of raising her autistic son. Kitty is able to "hold it together" during the Christmas holidays, but once life returns to normal, the triumvirate of grief overwhelms Kitty and she escapes her married life, into a single dream life, where things are a little easier and less complicated.
In the end, Kitty realizes her single life is the dream world and she's able to start to come to peace with her parents death and make amends with Frieda and finds a way to reach her autistic son.
It's all in how we deal with what we're dealt. We can't control the accidents (deaths) or the unexpected (autism) that come into our lives.
Kitty's single life seems a little sad; everyday the same, spending all her time with her cat and with Frieda, her bff from her school days and co-owner of the bookstore that hardly anyone shops, no boyfriend and a deep attachment to her parents at the age of 30. Reading this, you just wanted something more for her.
Every night Kitty has dreams about being 'Kathryn', married with children and yet this life has challenges too. In this world, she has a violent, autistic son that she homeschools.
A great story that explores "what if" circumstances had been just a little different.
Lots of discussion material in this one!
SPOILER STARTS BELOW:
The story tension comes from building confusion over which life is a dream and which is reality. In the end, Kitty wakes up to the reality that everything in her single life is just a little too easy, a little too convenient. She slowly hints about this reality when she realizes that she is missing whole days in her single life that she can't account for. What's unique about this story is that there are no traditional villains in this book - the real villain is Kitty's grief over losing her parents who die suddenly in a plane crash & losing the friendship of her bff and co-bookstore owner, Frieda, and the challenges of raising her autistic son. Kitty is able to "hold it together" during the Christmas holidays, but once life returns to normal, the triumvirate of grief overwhelms Kitty and she escapes her married life, into a single dream life, where things are a little easier and less complicated.
In the end, Kitty realizes her single life is the dream world and she's able to start to come to peace with her parents death and make amends with Frieda and finds a way to reach her autistic son.
It's all in how we deal with what we're dealt. We can't control the accidents (deaths) or the unexpected (autism) that come into our lives.