This is a book I’ve seen floating around various blogs all last year, so when it showed up in the donation bin at my library, I couldn’t help myself. I picked it up, along with 5 other books. I started this book, and instantly I could not put it down. The story is fresh and lively, the characters are wonderfully conceived and portrayed.
The book follows the lives of two people. There is Cornelia, a cafe manager living in Philadelphia. Her story is told through the first person, and we learn immediately about her love for all things classic, particularly classic movies such as The Philadelphia Story. Reading Cornelia’s sections of the book only had me adding movies to my already long queue on Blockbuster. Cornelia’s appreciation of the classics makes her a romantic at heart, and is what instantly leads to the love at first sight meeting with a dashing gentleman that walks into her cafe.
The second person is Clare, an 11 year old girl of divorced parents, witnessing her mother slowly lose her mind and grip on responsibility and herself. The Clare sections are told through the third person. While I’m not sure why Marisa De Los Santos chose to go with two different perspectives for each character, I think it worked well with the overall flow of the story.
While Cornelia and Clare are living their lives, Cornelia in love, and Clare in a seemly organized state of chaos, their lives do intersect and are then interwoven in this touching story about finding love and comfort in the most unusual of places.
This story reminded me a lot of the movie No Reservations with Catherine Zeta Jones. Many of the same themes (in fact some very similar scenes) from the movie are in the book. There is the unlikely mother figure in a non-mother caring for a child who has just lost her mother. The new mother figure finding love in something other than what she has been putting all of her energy and time into nurturing. There were many parts of the novel that felt too Hallmark for me, and I think lacked a bit of realism. Clare seemed to intuitive and insightful for her age. Overall, I love the relationship that Cornelia and Clare formed, with the help of Cornelia’s brother-in-law Teo. I do with that De Los Santos spent more time on Linny, Cornelia’s best friend. She is incredibly insightful, and straight-forward type of friend with no hestitations about life. I was sad that she disappeared for the majority of the book and only slightly reappeared later on. The focus of the story is Cornelia and Clare, but De Los Santos did not skimp on the personalities of the supporting characters.
Despite the Hallmark moments and neatly-wrapped up ending, De Los Santos has a magnificent writing style that is unique.
FINAL GRADE: A
Love Walked In
Marisa De Los Sants
Plume, 2005
ISBN 0452287898
307 pages
**************************************
Find this book at your local library
Buy this book from Better World Books
Buy this book from Amazon
Find this book at your local Indie Bookstore
**********************************************************
