Friday, February 27, 2015

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

★★★★★
"Sometimes books don't find us until the right time."

"Every word the right one and exactly where it should be.  That's basically the highest compliment I can give.  I'm only sorry it took me so long to read it."

"Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides, because they are.  We have to look inside may. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again."

"It's so simple, he thinks. Maya, he wants to say, I have figured it all out.
But his brain won't let him.
The words you can't find, you borrow.
We read to know we're not alone.  We read because we are alone.  We read and we are not alone.  We are not alone.
My life is in these books, he wants to tell her.  Read these and know my heard.
We are not quite novels.
The analogy he is looking for is almost there.
We are not quite short stories.  At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.
In the end, we are collected works."

"We aren't the things we collect, acquire, read.  We are, for as long as we are here, only love.  The things we loved.  The people we loved.  And these, I think these really do live on."

This was a book about books and and love and loss. And people that fall into your life at the most unexpected times and change you in the most unexpected ways.  This was one of those books that I couldn't put down.  I read the first pages and fell in love with the story from the very beginning.  It was one of those books that seemed to have a little bit of everything in it - mystery, romance, literature.  And I loved the incorporation of short stories at the beginning of each chapter.

My daughter was about a month old at the time and, after putting her to bed completely exhausted, I somehow stayed up reading the entire thing - it was so good!  a bit like a Hallmark movie at times, but totally worth it.  Highly recommended for anyone that loves books as much as I do! And so many great quotes!

This book was #7 on my top ten list of 2015.

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