8 Heart Review: The Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick

The Good Luck of Right Now
Matthew Quick
Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Follow the Tour!

Page Count: 304
Release Date: February 11th 2014
Publisher: Harper (Harper Collins)
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher via tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Harper Collins and TLC!)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Call it fate. Call it synchronicity. Call it an act of God. Call it... The Good Luck of Right Now. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook comes an entertaining and inspiring tale that will leave you pondering the rhythms of the universe and marveling at the power of kindness and love.

For thirty-eight years, Bartholomew Neil has lived with his mother. When she gets sick and dies, he has no idea how to be on his own. His redheaded grief counselor, Wendy, says he needs to find his flock and leave the nest. But how does a man whose whole life has been grounded in his mom, Saturday mass, and the library learn how to fly?

Bartholomew thinks he’s found a clue when he discovers a “Free Tibet” letter from Richard Gere hidden in his mother’s underwear drawer. In her final days, mom called him Richard—there must be a cosmic connection. Believing that the actor is meant to help him, Bartholomew awkwardly starts his new life, writing Richard Gere a series of highly intimate letters. Jung and the Dalai Lama, philosophy and faith, alien abduction and cat telepathy, the Catholic Church and the mystery of women are all explored in his soul-baring epistles. But mostly the letters reveal one man’s heartbreakingly earnest attempt to assemble a family of his own.

A struggling priest, a “Girlbrarian,” her feline-loving, foul-mouthed brother, and the spirit of Richard Gere join the quest to help Bartholomew. In a rented Ford Focus, they travel to Canada to see the cat Parliament and find his biological father... and discover so much more.

Buy the book from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | Books-A-Million | Sony eStore | Kobo | iTunes | Publisher

Review

When I looked into [my mother's] eyes, she didn't seem to see me. It was like she was having a vision—seeing what I could not.
It made me wonder if Mom had used some sort of womanly witchcraft and turned me into you somehow.
That we—you and me—had become one in her mind.
Richard Gere.
Bartholomew Neil.
We.

At thirty-nine, Bartholomew Neil still isn't ready to leave his mother's nest, but when he loses her to cancer, he's left with no other choice. His once-stable, once-routine world—of just him, his mother, and God—crumbles to pieces when one of his biggest role models, Father McNamee, consequently denounces himself from the Catholic church, and in turn, becomes more than just a religious father figure to Bartholomew, by becoming a human being.

Convinced that his other beloved role model, Richard Gere, is watching over him now that God no longer is, Bartholomew begins a one-way correspondence; these letters are what make up the entire novel. This fantasy relationship he creates is the only thing that still connects him to his deceased mother, considering she was Richard Gere's biggest fan, and the sole belief that he is guiding Bartholomew as if they were old friends, leads to unexpected discoveries and profound self-inquiry.

The unique narrator is what stood out to me, first and foremost. It is not a shock that Quick would write a protagonist who isn't quite normal—one who clearly suffers from a mental disorder, but internally, is the same as any and all of us: deeply, imperfectly human. Bartholomew isn't a grand hero, no, but he glows with sincerity and is a compassionate, warm character; his brilliantly observant and self-recognizing tone will capture the hearts of readers just as that of The Silver Linings Playbook did.

Matthew Quick is skilled not only at providing perspective, but also at conveying the necessity of pretending—not out of delusion, but out of self-preservation—and the sheer magic of believing—whether through faith or through faithlessness. While the book is stylistically simple, it will make you think hard and think long; Bartholomew's introspection on religion, political correctness, and the nature of existence, will make your mind turn. There are moments where you'll disbelievingly relate, and resultantly be touched—fate—and the way the story proceeds rather messily, but falls into place, piece by piece—synchronicity—will provide immense comfort; this is a story for the soul. Whether through acts of God or through coincidence, Bartholomew's life changes gradually at the discovery of an unlikely cast of new friends, and through little achievements that propel him forward further than he could imagine; it is you, the privileged reader, who gets to go along for the ride.

Pros

Requires deep thinking // Will make you reconsider the stigma of mental health disorders // Interesting perspective of a man's "delusions" // Casual, mellow style // Moves quickly; easy to read and keep reading // Story itself is synchronous as it comes into full circle // Distinct, unforgettable characters // Emotional, heartfelt

Cons

Plot isn't terribly exciting; it's more the details and Bartholomew's day-to-day observances that make it interesting // Rushed, inconclusive ending

Love

I listened for God's voice, but all I heard were the birds.

I wondered if maybe I should tell Father McNamee about you, Richard Gere, but for some reason I didn't—and I'm not going to either.

You are my confidant, Richard Gere, and I'm not about to share my pretending with anyone, because pretending often ends when you allow nonpretenders access to the better safer worlds you create for yourself.

I'd like for us to be secret friends, Richard Gere.

I think I can learn from both you and Father McNamee, and I'd like to keep those two worlds separate for now. Like church and state... Separation of church and state. Not that you are my state, because you are not. And, evidently, Father McNamee is no longer my church either.

Your admiring fan,
Bartholomew Neil

Verdict

Pensive, honest, and appropriately quirky, The Good Luck of Right Now meditates upon the power of correspondence, the catharsis of confiding, and the definition of believing. Through writing descriptive, intimate letters to his lifelong idol—the ultimate coping mechanism—Bartholomew learns about independence, acquaintance, and ever-burning hope—a remedy for both him, and for readers all around. Fans of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime will rejoice in Matthew Quick's newest novel for its genuine, thoughtful reflections and its propensity for happy outcomes in the tumbling-together of stray paths 

8 hearts: An engaging read that will be worth your while; highly recommended (x)

9 Heart Review: What I Had Before I Had You by Sarah Cornwell

What I Had Before I Had You
Sarah Cornwell
Facebook | Goodreads | Follow the Tour!

Page Count: 288
Release Date: January 7th 2014
Publisher: Harper (Harper Collins)
Source: Complimentary copy provided by publisher via tour publicist in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you, Harper Collins and TLC!)
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Written in radiant prose and with stunning psychological acuity, award-winning author Sarah Cornwell’s What I Had Before I Had You is a deeply poignant story that captures the joys and sorrows of growing up and learning to let go.

Olivia Reed was fifteen when she left her hometown of Ocean Vista on the Jersey Shore. Two decades later, divorced and unstrung, she returns with her teenage daughter, Carrie, and nine-year-old son, Daniel, recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Distracted by thoughts of the past, Olivia fails to notice when Daniel disappears from her side. Her frantic search for him sparks memories of the summer of 1987, when she exploded out of the cocoon of her mother’s fierce, smothering love and into a sudden, full-throttle adolescence, complete with dangerous new friends, first love, and a rebellion so intense that it utterly recharted the course of her life.

Olivia’s mother, Myla, was a practicing psychic whose powers waxed and waned along with her mercurial moods. Myla raised Olivia to be a guarded child, and also to believe in the ever-present infant ghosts of her twin sisters, whom Myla took care of as if they were alive—diapers, baby food, an empty nursery kept like a shrine. At fifteen, Olivia saw her sisters for the first time, not as ghostly infants but as teenagers on the beach. But when Myla denied her vision, Olivia set out to learn the truth—a journey that led to shattering discoveries about herself and her family.

Sarah Cornwell seamlessly weaves together the past and the present in this riveting debut novel, as she examines the relationships between mothers and daughters, and the powerful forces of loss, family history, and magical thinking.

Buy the book from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | Books-A-Million | iTunes | Publisher

Review

What if all the transcendent moments of your life, the sound-track moments, the radiant detail, the gleaming thing at the center of life that loves you, that loves beauty—God or whatever you call it—what if all this were part of your illness? Would you seek treatment? I have, and sometimes I wonder if the greatest passions are just out of my reach. And sometimes I am so grateful.

As Olivia Reed's family begins to fall helplessly apart in the wake of a dry affair and along with her recently diagnosed son's growing instability, she whisks her children away from their once-comforting ranch in Texas, doing the one thing she does best: run. She knows she's out of her mind going back to the place she left behind long ago, the place where she is certain her ghosts still reside, but in an act of desperation, she has no choice; she's hometown-bound, and the moment she steps onto the long-missed boardwalk and breathes in the salty ocean air, she knows she has made a mistake.

Losing her son, combined with the familiarity of Ocean Vista, conjures various memories—of her first love, of her best friends, and most painfully, of the one person she never fully forgave: her mother. What I Had Before I Had You exposes Olivia's life in its slow, harrowing full, alternating between her unfairly influenced, unsupervised childhood and the unsettling, untold present-day. It sweeps readers through the lonely adolescence, teenage rebellion, and liberal prominence of the 1970's and 80's, all the while describing the frenzied, unnerving search for Daniel in the present, before escalating to the fateful summer when everything changed—when Olivia first indulged in her art of abandonment.

Reading this book was an experience itself. The brief glances into Olivia's shaky childhood—the result of a mentally ill but in-denial mother and the burden of independence that came much too early—as well as the current frustrations over muting her disorder while simultaneously muting herself, are penetrating, completely eye-opening. Cornwell masterfully balances the struggles of hereditary bipolar disorder—not only a diagnosis, in Olivia's bloodline, but also an inheritance—and the struggles of being a mother—of being human—in this glittering narrative.

Olivia's past is told with a vintage filter, a dusky, dreamy undertone; deeply periodic and exquisitely lush, it involves Myla's divine convictions, sleepless nights spent alone, and the unaware suffering she felt as a child—both unmedicated and uninformed. This is the childhood that adult Olivia has tried so hard to forget, the childhood that her family now knows nothing about, and as it unravels with ruthless precision and targeted blows, it culminates into the story of what happened when she was fifteen—the summer of extreme emotions and ultimate betrayal.

I was even further impressed by how complex the storytelling is; it isn't simply a factual retelling, it isn't just a secret revealed. Olivia's past is narrated with the haze of an unreliable brain, a time-worn rememberer; readers are only given the version of events that have become Olivia's own, tempered by her imagination and improved by the million small revisions of memory. We will never know whether the emotions presented, as intense as they are, have been dulled by time, weathered by maturity, and this is the entire essence of the novel—this is Olivia's pain, which, through Cornwell's rare gift for detailing and piercing hearts, readers feel, themselves.

Pros

Emotionally searing // Evocative; beachy, warm setting // Nostalgic; memories of childhood revealed with a tragic veil of time // Writing is powerful and poetic // Biting, wounding, affecting // Insightful; psychologically and stunningly precise // Phenomenal incorporation of the past into the present // Historically and culturally rich, vivid

Cons

Slow start // Disorienting at times

Love

Pam never came after me. I don't blame her. I didn't look for her, either. I hear that she's a math teacher in West Orange. There are those people in your life who matter instantly, on another plane, and you have to marry them or kill them or run the hell away, you can't do it halfway. I hope her house is full of paintings. I hope somebody loves her.

We walk down the boardwalk, close to the storefronts, scanning the crowds for Daniel, his lime-green swim trunks, his gray T-shirt, his thick brown curls. Of course I would lose him here; this is where I lose people. My past is leaching into my present, and even in the midst of this panic, I feel a sensation of walking a few steps behind myself. 

Verdict

Heartbreaking, silver-lined, and deeply meaningful, What I Had Before I Had You meditates on one mother's frantic search for her son, as well as on the even more hazardous search for herself. Sarah Cornwell elegantly constructs the thin membrane that separates childhood from parenthood in this luminous debut; as if slipping in and out of consciousness, the storylines alternate—unwinding slowly, lazily at first, and then gaining torque, and consequently, destructive power—a depiction of the debilitating effects of a mental illness such as bipolar disorder. This novel blends together the tenderly told story of a failed first love, the bittersweet flavor of resurrecting family ghosts and family history, and the delicate, learned craft of holding on and letting go—indeed, an intoxicating melange 

9 hearts: Loved it! This book has a spot on my favorites shelf (x)