Sing with me, “This is the winter that never ends. It just goes on and on my friends..” Does anyone else feel this way? Normally I’m perfectly content to sit inside and huddle under blankets reading books. But that doesn’t quite happen when my children were home on snow or cold days 4 out of 5 days!
I was so ready to do my happy dance on Thursday night when we got an email from the district that due to “bus mechanical issues”, school would be closed yet another day. Super exciting!
I should be over it by now, right? That was last week. But it just seems like the walls are closing in on me and I’m so ready to ditch the couch and blankets for some sunny outdoor reading with a margarita by my side. Except it’s still February.
I did get some reading done last week, I finished Lolly Winston’s charming new book, Me for You. Even the cover is adorably charming on this one!
From the Publisher:
The last thing Rudy expected was to wake up one Saturday morning, a widow at fifty-four years old. Now, ten months after the untimely death of his beloved wife, he’s still not sure how to move on from the defining tragedy of his life—but his new job is helping. After being downsized from his finance position, Rudy turned to his first love: the piano. Some people might be embarrassed to work as the piano player at Nordstrom, but for Rudy, there’s joy in bringing a little music into the world. And it doesn’t hurt that Sasha, the Hungarian men’s watch clerk who is finally divorcing her no-good husband, finds time to join him at the bench every now and then.
Just when Rudy and Sasha’s relationship begins to deepen, the police come to the store with an update about Rudy’s wife’s untimely death—a coworker has confessed to her murder—but Rudy’s actions are suspicious enough to warrant a second look at him, too. With Sasha’s husband suddenly reappearing, and Rudy’s daughter confronting her own marital problems, suddenly life becomes more complicated than Rudy and Sasha could have imagined.
With Winston’s trademark humor and sweetness that will appeal to readers of Jennifer Weiner and Fredrik Backman but is uniquely her own, Lolly Winston delivers a heartfelt and realistic portrait of loss and grief, hope and forgiveness, and two imperfect people coming together to create a perfect love story.
My Review:
Poor Rudy. As the book opens he’s just grappling with the loss of his wife, Belinda. From the backstory we gather they were one of those couples that just goes together like peanut butter and jelly. They lived a quiet but happy life and just generally enjoyed each other’s company.
After Rudy’s loss, what was once a quiet life for two because an indescribably depressing and lonely life for one. We accompany Rudy on his journey through crippling grief and out the other side.
Definitely not a feel-good book all the way through, but a hopeful book and as I’ve mentioned before, a charming little book. And although I didn’t personally find it as compelling as other books I’ve read by the author, I do feel that the story and writing was true to Winston’s style.
I would recommend this book to fans of Lolly Winston, or even as a story for someone who is dealing with a loss of their own. Grief is hard to live with, but it’s also a huge part of living. There can be light at the end of the tunnel.
Special thanks to Netgalley and Touchstone Gallery Books for an e-galley in exchange for my honest review. This one is out March 12, 2019.
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