This Book Comes With a Side of Cheese[y]

Card @ Someecards

I’m a glutton for punishment. What is that the third deadly sin? I have it.

My first Penguin Random House Proof

I said yes to a book about love from Plume (my first Penguin Random House imprint – AH, they’re a duo)! I know, I know, kick me while I’m down. It could be worse. My students could spread a rumor that I didn’t get dumped, I got engaged! And then when my most favorite thug comes in he yells, “Ain’t nobody hittin’ that, her fingers going to be stale!” Oh wait, that did happen to me last week. I should probably not share my relationship status with my students because, let’s be honest, they’re worse than Facebook.

The Look of Love by Sarah Joi (Goodreads Cover)

Anyway, I just finished The Look of Love by Sarah Joi. She’s written like 729 books, but this is the first one I’ve read and that’s probably due to the fact that I usually avoid cheese, with a side of swiss, like this book. Guys, I have quit so many books this year. If I had a blog for the books that I only read some of in 2014, it would be SO MUCH better than this blog right now. I’m not even sure I read a book in October…that’s really sad, isn’t it? I guess it just took “a little bit of love, a little bit of love is lovely.” Just a little New Edition for ya.

Photo by me @ Ashevile

This book wasn’t bad. It was just SO cheesy. Here goes the plot: a girl named Jane (typical) is about to turn 30. And we all know that the eve of 30 is the worst time in a woman’s life because for some reason we feel like we’re officially old (and brittle) by the time we’re 30. I literally announced to my best friend last week, “Oh my God, I’m closer to 30 than 20.” What is wrong with us, women? Anyway, Jane gets this odd birthday card about a gift she has. She goes and sees Colette and Colette informs her that she has the ability to “see love.” As in, when love is around, her eyes fog over and she has to find the nearest bench. The deal is, she has to use this gift to find the seven types of love: agape, storge, pragma, philautia, phillia, ludus, and ero, or she will be forced to live without love for the rest of her life. You can imagine where this is going. It wasn’t A Walk to Remember, or P.S. I Love You, but it was intriguing. It gave me all kinds of insight about women in love that I knew, but buried deep somewhere and hoped I would never have to face. It reminded me what we’re willing to sacrifice for love, which is both scary and comforting. There are people in the world that believe in that soulmate, star gaze, romcom shit still. It’s kind of heart-warming going into a holiday season.

Flower by me from Biltmore House

Sarah Jio, I think I can say, probably writes mostly women’s fiction, and she doesn’t have any terribly moving lines. There were a few quotes that made me realize how much I want a boy to send me flowers. Can we get that back? And now girls, don’t lie…you don’t dislike flowers just because they die. I know we’ve all said that when we get a weird look from some judgmental jerk we’re dating, but every girl loves a flowery something. She used Fitzgerald’s epic line, “I love her and that’s the beginning and end of everything.” However, my favorite moment is when Jane is talking to one of her friends who thinks she’s found true love in the man across the street, problem is, she’s already married to the biggest sweetheart ever, she says, “I’m not saying anything. I just think you should own that love and not be apologetic about it.”

Blackoutpoetry @ Instagram

And that’s the line that stays with me. As woman, after a break-up, we always sit around and rehash the situation. My autocorrect turned rehash into rehab and I think that’s an appropriate word here too. Our girlfriends help us spell out all the awful adjectives that describe those former loves. Ugh, he didn’t even like his Grandma. Or Ugh, he couldn’t even fix my car when it broke down, what kind of man is that? But here’s the bottom line, you loved that smelly, unfixable, heartless, throbbing, boy wonder, and you need to just own it and move on. No time is wasted even if you poured used cat litter on his pictures. Life is precious, isn’t that the OLD old saying? Let’s just keep it that way and own the precious. And then remind ourselves that we’re not together with that man anymore, not only a. because we dated another douchebag, but b. because the world has bigger plans for us…maybe not romantic plans, but just plans, and they’re big, moon walk right into them.

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