Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The One That I Want - August's Blogger Book Pick


Tilly grows up in Smalltown USA and finds it comforting and everything she could want. She marries her high school sweetheart, Tyler, and they live a 'perfect' life in their hometown. She is the guidance counselor at their old high school and Tyler, a former baseball standout, works at a sporting goods store and they live in a house that Tilly's dad bought them as a wedding present. Do you sense a problem yet?


Tilly runs into an old friend Ashley at the town fair and she wants give Tilly a palm reading. Tilly refuses but Ashley insists on giving her 'clarity.' The clarity is the beginning of the end of Tilly's perfect life.


Tilly starts passing out and dreams about things happening to her loved ones. She has a dream her dad is drinking again after spending 10 years sober. She dreams her husband is moving out of their house and she dreams her best-friend who is separated from her husband has a new boyfriend.


How could this happen? Why is her life spinning out of control?


Tilly is a complete control freak about having things like they have always been and not rocking the boat. But the clarity that Ashley has given her has turned her into an angry and rude person she never knew was inside of her.


I really enjoyed the book and the small town drama. I grew up in a small town and still live very close to it and have worked in it. You know everybody's business 24/7. It is sooo hard living in the same place you grew up in, especially if you hit your peak at 17.


The whole 'clarity' thing though was wtf. I just didn't get that and I thought it was a lot of whack. However, Tilly needed a whack on the head to see things clearly. She was a little dense, but it was definitely a coping mechanism that she had put in place after the huge disruption her childhood had.


I also really really really liked the growth that she experienced as a character through the book. I like that she took back a hobby that interested her and got brave and ventured out.


I liked it more than I thought I would after I got 8 pages in and realized it was about someone working in a school and trying to have a baby and those are all topics that make me a little moody these days.


What did you all think about the book? If you wrote a review and want me to link it up let me know, or if you want to write your own guest post here about the book, let me know!


I will post discussion questions in the next week!

1 comment:

Lisa from Lisa's Yarns said...

I am a bad book club member once again... So I have not read this book. I am still on the wait list for it at the library... I really wanted to read it, but it just did not become available so I will most likely read this in September!

Sounds interesting, though!