I typically don’t blog about a book if I haven’t finished it yet, but something tells me this is one I am going to have a hard time putting down. It’s also a book that got me so fired up that I had to write about it and talk about it and discuss it to everyone I came into contact with. The question I kept asking was, “Is it cheating if nothing physical occurs?” and “Is having an emotional relationship with someone a form of betrayal?” The first response immediately, from both men and women was “YES! Definitely.” But then as we discussed it and the other details of Holly’s novel were talked about, the answer became a little less convincing. The main character in Love and Other Natural Disasters by Holly Shumas is married with a young child and another baby on the way. Her whole life is torn upside down when she discovers that her once perfect husband is having an intense “friendship” with another woman, a woman who seems to be falling in love with her husband.
Just this weekend I went to see He’s Just Not That Into You and found it interesting that there was a very similar thing going on between the Bradley Cooper character and Scarlet Johannson. In the movie, Cooper is married to Jennifer Connelly but developing a very cozy relationship with Johannson. I won’t give anything away but must admit that it certainly stirred up the same feelings that this book is igniting. I know what happened between Cooper and Connelly but I don’t know what Holly has planned out for her characters. I can’t wait to discover where she takes her story! This book is so good! The writing is pitch-perfect in that it is both emotional and funny at the same time, much like life. When describing the emails she is reading between her husband and his “friend”, Shumas writes:
That’s when the tenor of the e-mails changed. The next two weeks’ worth were feverish with exclamation points. You could practically read the hard-on.
Then in describing the possible difference between herself and her husband’s close female friend, Shumas writes:
In Jon’s mind, maybe I was one of those hearty women who can squat down in the field and have their babies and then get back to plowing, and Laney was off being a damsel in distress with a perfect manicure and a blowout.
I’m anticipating finishing this book by tonight because the questions are gnawing at me and I doubt I will be able to sleep until they are answered. I want to say that this is great chick-lit but I think that undermines the emotional complexity of a story as superbly written and drawn out as this one. I am looking forward to many more books by this incredibly talented author.
Summary:
Eve is eight months pregnant and in the middle of a Thanksgiving celebration when she discovers that her husband Jonathan has developed an intimate relationship with a woman over the past year. Jonathon asserts his innocence (an affair involves physical intimacy, and he didn’t have any), while Eve feels deeply betrayed by the emotional connection he shared with someone else. What Jon has done seems so terrifyingly out of character that Eve finds herself questioning her entire reality. Did she ever really know Jon at all? Was their happiness together a lie? Is emotional intimacy more forgivable than sexual intimacy? And can their marriage survive?
UPDATE: Finished this book in record time and LOVED it!!!!
