Looking Back - Step.Ball.Change

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Step.Ball.Change by Jeanne Ray

Fiction

2002

Finished on May 12, 2002

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Caroline and Tom are looking forward to retirement. He's been practicing law, she's been running a dance studio, and together they've raised four great kids. It's time to enjoy the fruits of their labor...Suddenly, though, their empty nest is filling up. Caroline's sister arrives with a load of luggage, a bad-tempered terrier, and a broken heart. A contractor finds cracks in the foundation, and sets up camp indefinitely. And their daughter Kay brings home her fiance, the richest boy in Raleigh--and plans a high-society wedding that could wipe out their savings. Filled with the warmth and wit that delighted readers of Julie and Romeo, this tale of a family caught in a whirlwind of change reminds us that life is what happens while we're making other plans--and that having loved ones along for the ride is the greatest blessing of all.

My Original Thoughts (2002):

A nice "fluff" read. Good for a gloomy weekend or an airplane flight. A couple of nice passages about love and marriage.

I leaned over and kissed him. I tried to make it count. A person had to be diligent about kissing. Kissing was the affirmation of the union, the secret handshake that identified its members. And even knowing how important it was, it was easy to let it slide altogether, and suddenly one day you wake up and realize that it has been weeks since you've kissed your husband while you've had your clothes on. Worse still were the kisses that became mere gestures of kissing, those hard little pecks like the kind you got from a great-aunt when you were five, kisses that weren't kisses at all but said instead, I used to kiss you and this is the symbol that now stands in its place. It was the difference between eating a great meal and looking at a picture of food in a magazine: One made you feel full and the other only reminded you that you were hungry.

and

Was I sure about love, that this was the person I would be eating my meals with and raising children with and making love to for so many years. I had no idea. I wanted to tell my daughter that I had been absolutely certain, but I think what I had been is absolutely lucky. I don't think that I knew Tom's middle name when I married him. It didn't matter. We had been full of a dreamy sort of romance then. Maybe we had excellent intuition about each other, but the real love came later. I think, probably, the real love always comes later.

My Current Thoughts:

I don't read much in the way of romance or fluff these days, but I might re-read this one since I still own a copy. 

Fun fact: Jeanne Ray is Anne Patchett's mother.