Bingo Square: Cannonballer Says
Caitlin_D posted her review of Words in Deep Blue a few days before I got on the Cannonball Read site in late June for some book inspiration. I hadn’t exactly been paying much attention to new releases, so I quickly ended up discovering that some previously enjoyed authors had new novels out which were promptly added to the cart. Between the review, the title and the cover, something about this novel appealed to me, so it too made the cut (I can’t say I was super discerning since my order page shows that I bought about 17 novels that day … I hadn’t gone on a book spree in ages, I was making up for lost time).
Rachel and Henry were best friends until Rachel and her family moved away three years ago. They lost touch because Rachel was mad at him for not even acknowledging the letter she left for him where she laid out her true feelings for him. Meanwhile, Henry doesn’t understand why his best friend stopped talking to him since he never received the letter.
Now, Rachel is back in town, and she is very different from the girl who left, angrier, more rude and less patient. Rachel’s younger brother Cal died the previous year, and Rachel has not told anyone from their old home town because she doesn’t want to talk about it or face it. From being the top math and science student in her school, with the desire to have a career related to the ocean, Rachel has lost focus and failed her final year. Her aunt has secured her a job, and in the hopes of getting Rachel out of her slump, her mother has made her move in with her aunt in her old home town. Cal drowned, so not only did she lose her brother, but she has lost her lack of fear from the thing that used to be her escape – the ocean.
Henry, meanwhile, is reeling from a break up with his girlfriend Amy, and is starting to make some realizations about his life. As much as he loves the family owned second hand bookstore, he will never be able to afford much if he simply takes it over. The business is struggling and the building, or more accurately its location, is worth much more to developers than the store itself. Henry’s recently divorced parents, his sister and Henry must decide what the smart next step is, and as Henry grapples with ideas of the future, he has to decide what is more important to him, and whether he could live without the store which is as much a part of him as the ocean once was to Rachel.
The good thing is that once Henry and Rachel are reacquainted, they quickly realize that Henry never received the letter though Rachel doesn’t reveal what she wrote in it. I appreciated that after a three year misunderstanding the novel didn’t attempt to draw that part out even more.
Of the two, I definitely preferred Rachel as Henry does the usual mopey teenager in love thing, thinking lost love is the worst thing ever imaginable, while also being oddly optimistic. Overall, he was a sweet guy and supportive and loyal friend, but Rachel was definitely the easier one to understand. I don’t think I enjoyed this one quite as much as Caitlin_D, though it was a good novel as it dealt with grief and loss. While there was a lot of sweetness in the book, there was also a sense of melancholy for me. I also liked all the inserts of pages from second hand books with notes written in them. I thought that whole part of the novel was a nice touch.
Bingo Square: Cannonballer Says