Belong to me by Marisa de los Santos; read it and rejoice

{cute cover}

This book was a huge hit at home.  Both my husband and daughter loved the cover. " It's the bright rain boots" Groovy Girl commented as she ran her finger up and down the different sizes of boots, thinking about the children in the story who would be slipping them on.  My husband also made comments regarding the cover and the title. Usually they don't pay this much attention.  We do love rain boots at our house but maybe it was because my nose was often stuck down into the book at different times of the day trying to read one more chapter, paragraph, or sentence.  Maybe it's because de los Santos is a poet as well that her words make such wonderful sentences.

I finished it and had that same old bluesy feeling that I didn't want it to end. The characters became a part of me.  Even the woman that I thought I wouldn't ever like turned out to be pretty darn likable. Cornelia, Piper, and Dev all share their stories with us in alternating chapters and in very distinctively different voices.  Surrounding those three characters are a crew of others that we also grow to love and even weep about it.  I know...don't you just want to know more...

Okay I'll tell you a little more.  But just a little.  You should really read it for yourself.

Cornelia and her husband, the handsome Teo, have moved to the suburbs leaving NYC after 9-11 made them feel a little less safe in the city.  Cornelia's not excited about the suburbs and her fears all come true when she meets Piper, her wound-too-tight neighbor.  Piper is snobby, complex, and unhappy; she likes to be the queen until one thing in her life falls apart and she sees how much it doesn't matter.  Cornelia doesn't like snobby and writes Piper off as a neighborhood quack.  But then Cornelia meets Lake in the grocery store and they hit it off right away yet there is a story behind Lake and her super intelligent son Deveroux that Lake isn't willing to share.  Family secrets and good friendships wind their way through this well-written plot.

Random quote:

He and Clare started walking toward the bus stop, their shadows stretching out ahead of them.  Dev watched the girl shadow take the boy shadow's hand, and he realized that the homesick feeling had disappeared.  In its place was a new feeling, too new to have a name.  

"How cool would that have been, though?" He shot Clare a sidelong, happy grin. "A dad with a bike shop?"

Clare laughed her jingle-bell laugh, and Dev realized that what he felt was young.  He'd been young all his life, of course he had.  But now he was  aware of it.  Every cell, every electron of his body felt young: unencumbered, uncluttered, as clean as the clear blue sky. (153)

The interesting part is that Clare is a repeat character from de los Santos' first book, Love Walked in, and she makes me want to go back and reread that first book again even though I have many other books laying about my house to read. Clare's and Cornelia's story is intriguing and makes an interesting twist to bring them together again and share this young love story with us.

Marisa de los Santos website

A Literary Mama interview with de los Santos about all three of her books.