Book Review: Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
I recently finished this for book club, and figured I would write up a review, thus keeping true to my year-old promise that I would review more books.
Love Walked In is Marisa de los Santos’s first novel. She tells it in chapters that alternate between a first-person narrator and third-person narration. Cornelia, the first-person narrator, manages a coffee shop, and is in love with old movies, Cary Grant, and a dreamy, debonair, Cary Grant look-a-like, Martin. Clare, main character of the other chapters, is afraid her mother is going insane. When Clare’s mother abandons her, Clare shows up at Cornelia’s coffee shop led by her father: Martin. Martin is a distant, pretty much useless, father, so when Cornelia’s brother-in-law, Teo, shows up and pitches in, it’s a godsend. The rest of the story is about how Cornelia, Clare, Martin and Teo try to find Clare’s mother and solve the situation without damaging Clare’s heart and psyche any further.
This is definitely a love story, albeit not one about men and women (well, for the most part). It’s not even about the love between a parent-like figure and a child. It’s really about familial love and all the people that term can encompass.
I really don’t consider this book “chick lit” either, just to alleviate any worries you might have. “Chick lit,” like the throwaway name implies, is mostly shallow (and frequently self-centered, I’ve found, though that may just be me). This book has great emotional depth, especially when dealing with Clare. Clare’s chapters are my favorite parts. She first deals with her mother’s encroaching insanity by desperately trying to hide it. She has to deal with friends, school employees and her mother co-workers even while her anxiety about her mother grows. The more she needs help, the less she is willing (or able) to ask for it. She tries to stay strong like the orphan-heroes from her favorite books, even as she fears becoming like an orphan herself. Her distant father only makes the problem worse. She’s trapped between acting grown up, and needing an adult to help and comfort her.
While Clare’s chapters may be where Santos’s storytelling ability shines, Cornelia’s chapters are where the author’s prose gets its due. Cornelia, as a first person narrator, is very conversational and a natural storyteller. She’ll be telling you what happened, and get sidetracked on a vaguely related tangent, just like a real person. Her world is full of funny people, or maybe they just appear that way through the lens of her own humor, a trait that always keeps the story engaging. Her personality is displayed in how she tells stories and how willing (or unwilling) she is to share information with the reader. Her character arc develops her from someone unsure of her ambitions and feelings into someone who learns how much she is able to love. Cornelia’s chapters are filled with effortless seeming poetic prose. Santos is already a published poet, and it shows. I adore the style. It's what sucked me into the story to begin with, as I have a deep love of clever writing and witty dialogue.
There are, however, some problems. You see, I was greatly enjoying the novel: appreciating Cornelia’s storytelling, being afraid for Clare and her mother, and alternately hating and feeling sorry for Martin. And then I got to The Plot Contrivance of Doom.
Dammit.
It doesn’t make the book bad, just so you know. It just makes it less excellent. I won’t tell you exactly what happens, as that would make the plot nearly obvious from beginning to end, and there should be some surprises, but you should know that the book has its faults. I don’t disdain plot contrivances in general, as sometimes you just need them, but this is a pretty big one. This is one that made me say, out loud, on the Metro, “What? Oh, please.” Verbal disbelief in a public place? From me, that’s pretty bad. I know that it fulfills a narrative purpose, and it does bring the characters to the (pretty good) conclusion. But it’s still an extremely blatant Plot Contrivance. Of Doom.
Sadly, after the Plot Contrivance, the book doesn’t seem quite as wonderful. The language is still beautiful, and the conversational tone still engaging, but the story itself starts to work itself out to a nearly predictable conclusion. Not entirely predictable, of course, but close enough for hand grenades or government work (should you want to blow up or bureaucratize the story to death). The ending is still touching and bittersweet, but I get the feeling that it was designed to be touching and bittersweet. Admittedly all fiction is designed, but I believe that I shouldn’t be able to see all the stitching in the finished product.
Another problem is that Clare slowly drops out of the narrative. Her chapters in the beginning are my favorites. They are full of beautifully described emotion: anxiety, longing, bravery. But after the Plot Contrivance, we focus more on Cornelia. While I prefer the first person narrative style because the language is poetic and clever, I found Clare’s plotline to be the more engaging. As things begin to sort themselves out, the reader is told more and more things about Clare, but sees them less and less from her perspective. Her chapters grow incredibly short, rendering them practically useless.
I hate that I can frequently write more about my problems with a book or movie even if I really enjoyed it. But there’s only so much gushing I (and probably you) can take about something, and I think being aware of faults helps me enjoy a book more. I don’t raise my expectations too high, and in that state, the faults might not appear as major to me as they might have. I can enjoy a book for itself, rather than for my expectations of it. And please bear in mind that I may be far more nitpicky than yourself, so maybe you won’t have a public verbal reaction to the Plot Contrivance. Maybe you won’t even notice it. If you found this review interesting at all, I recommend that you check out this book. It is quite good, especially for a first novel.
Love Walked In is Marisa de los Santos’s first novel. She tells it in chapters that alternate between a first-person narrator and third-person narration. Cornelia, the first-person narrator, manages a coffee shop, and is in love with old movies, Cary Grant, and a dreamy, debonair, Cary Grant look-a-like, Martin. Clare, main character of the other chapters, is afraid her mother is going insane. When Clare’s mother abandons her, Clare shows up at Cornelia’s coffee shop led by her father: Martin. Martin is a distant, pretty much useless, father, so when Cornelia’s brother-in-law, Teo, shows up and pitches in, it’s a godsend. The rest of the story is about how Cornelia, Clare, Martin and Teo try to find Clare’s mother and solve the situation without damaging Clare’s heart and psyche any further.
This is definitely a love story, albeit not one about men and women (well, for the most part). It’s not even about the love between a parent-like figure and a child. It’s really about familial love and all the people that term can encompass.
I really don’t consider this book “chick lit” either, just to alleviate any worries you might have. “Chick lit,” like the throwaway name implies, is mostly shallow (and frequently self-centered, I’ve found, though that may just be me). This book has great emotional depth, especially when dealing with Clare. Clare’s chapters are my favorite parts. She first deals with her mother’s encroaching insanity by desperately trying to hide it. She has to deal with friends, school employees and her mother co-workers even while her anxiety about her mother grows. The more she needs help, the less she is willing (or able) to ask for it. She tries to stay strong like the orphan-heroes from her favorite books, even as she fears becoming like an orphan herself. Her distant father only makes the problem worse. She’s trapped between acting grown up, and needing an adult to help and comfort her.
While Clare’s chapters may be where Santos’s storytelling ability shines, Cornelia’s chapters are where the author’s prose gets its due. Cornelia, as a first person narrator, is very conversational and a natural storyteller. She’ll be telling you what happened, and get sidetracked on a vaguely related tangent, just like a real person. Her world is full of funny people, or maybe they just appear that way through the lens of her own humor, a trait that always keeps the story engaging. Her personality is displayed in how she tells stories and how willing (or unwilling) she is to share information with the reader. Her character arc develops her from someone unsure of her ambitions and feelings into someone who learns how much she is able to love. Cornelia’s chapters are filled with effortless seeming poetic prose. Santos is already a published poet, and it shows. I adore the style. It's what sucked me into the story to begin with, as I have a deep love of clever writing and witty dialogue.
There are, however, some problems. You see, I was greatly enjoying the novel: appreciating Cornelia’s storytelling, being afraid for Clare and her mother, and alternately hating and feeling sorry for Martin. And then I got to The Plot Contrivance of Doom.
Dammit.
It doesn’t make the book bad, just so you know. It just makes it less excellent. I won’t tell you exactly what happens, as that would make the plot nearly obvious from beginning to end, and there should be some surprises, but you should know that the book has its faults. I don’t disdain plot contrivances in general, as sometimes you just need them, but this is a pretty big one. This is one that made me say, out loud, on the Metro, “What? Oh, please.” Verbal disbelief in a public place? From me, that’s pretty bad. I know that it fulfills a narrative purpose, and it does bring the characters to the (pretty good) conclusion. But it’s still an extremely blatant Plot Contrivance. Of Doom.
Sadly, after the Plot Contrivance, the book doesn’t seem quite as wonderful. The language is still beautiful, and the conversational tone still engaging, but the story itself starts to work itself out to a nearly predictable conclusion. Not entirely predictable, of course, but close enough for hand grenades or government work (should you want to blow up or bureaucratize the story to death). The ending is still touching and bittersweet, but I get the feeling that it was designed to be touching and bittersweet. Admittedly all fiction is designed, but I believe that I shouldn’t be able to see all the stitching in the finished product.
Another problem is that Clare slowly drops out of the narrative. Her chapters in the beginning are my favorites. They are full of beautifully described emotion: anxiety, longing, bravery. But after the Plot Contrivance, we focus more on Cornelia. While I prefer the first person narrative style because the language is poetic and clever, I found Clare’s plotline to be the more engaging. As things begin to sort themselves out, the reader is told more and more things about Clare, but sees them less and less from her perspective. Her chapters grow incredibly short, rendering them practically useless.
I hate that I can frequently write more about my problems with a book or movie even if I really enjoyed it. But there’s only so much gushing I (and probably you) can take about something, and I think being aware of faults helps me enjoy a book more. I don’t raise my expectations too high, and in that state, the faults might not appear as major to me as they might have. I can enjoy a book for itself, rather than for my expectations of it. And please bear in mind that I may be far more nitpicky than yourself, so maybe you won’t have a public verbal reaction to the Plot Contrivance. Maybe you won’t even notice it. If you found this review interesting at all, I recommend that you check out this book. It is quite good, especially for a first novel.