The Season of Love

It’s almost Valentine’s Day! I have book recommendations for you because I love you!

I started a new job this week that requires me to be in office five days a week. This is not an inherently bad thing - in fact, I think the structure it provides in my life will be a net positive. Structure creates time constraints, and time constraints create pressure, and I work well under pressure. That being said, it is an adjustment for a gal coming from a very cushy “work” from home situation (the gal is me). Needless to say, I’ve been running around this week like a chicken with my head cut off trying to (1) figure out how on earth people live like this, and (2) fit everything I need to get done into my now limited free time.

I know I’m probably alienating readers who are the “people who live like this,” so I’ll leave it at that. The point is that I’m really, really happy to be sitting here, using a little slice out of my time pie to write this. And this post is going to be a good one. Why, you ask? Because it’s the Season of Love™, of course. As I shared in my post about surviving the winter, I am a huge fan and celebrant of Valentine’s Day. I love it so much that I’m turning the whole thing into a month long holiday (the Season of Love™). There might be naysayers reading this thinking: “Actually, Eve, Valentine’s Day was created by corporate America, and it just perpetuates capitalism.” To that I say, so what and good.

In addition to perpetuating capitalism, Valentine’s Day is also good for other reasons. Even just browsing the valentines section at a stationary store brings me joy. Of course picking out the perfect card for the perfect person is beyond joyful. Thinking about how many people are picking out perfect cards for perfect people and sending them all across the country and the world fills me up to the brim with joy. I also really dig the pink. It’s not normally my go-to color, but it’s good to mix it up. In the past ten days, I’ve acquired several pink and red decorations for my apartment, pink and red candy for my candy bowl, and a beautiful pink bouquet for my bedside table. My eggs were shaped like a heart the other morning. Delicious in every sense.

The meaning of life is to love and be loved, and you’ll never convince me otherwise. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s a cliche because it’s true and so many people agreed that they started repeating it. Jokes aside, who actually cares about corporate America or capitalism??? Just take the opportunity this Season of Love to love and be loved. There is NO downside. Needless to say, loving yourself, or your mom, or your friends, or your doorman (shout out to that one episode of Modern Love on Prime) COUNTS, so you do not have to be in a relationship to celebrate.

I’ve been feeling the love since the beginning of the month, and in that spirit I decided it was necessary for me to read and review a romance novel here. I was originally going to read Book Lovers by Emily Henry because I’ve heard great things, and I want to make an effort to read more contemporary romance. However, on a recent jaunt to the Upper East Side (picture me strolling through the park and staring contemplatively at art in the Guggenheim), I found myself in the East 90’s in close proximity to The Corner Bookstore.

Upon walking in, I was transported back to my childhood, like some scene out of a romcom. And I suppose it was this main character aura washing over me that made the little shelf full of pre-gift wrapped books seem appealing and romantic. For those who haven’t seen this trend (they do it at The Strand too), the staff will wrap up books and then put a little note on it like, “read me if you like X,” and you can have a blind date with a book. It’s cute, but I had never taken the bait because I have so many books on my bookshelf that I need to read that I actually did pick out. That day at The Corner Bookstore, though, I saw a little wrapped up book that spoke to me, and I thought, “What the heck?! Live a little!” And that’s how I ended up reading Dreams of Falling by Karen White.

I’m not going to lie to you, it wasn’t a smashing success for the blind date with a book model. I place no blame on The Corner Bookstore because they didn’t advertise falsely, particularly on the Nicholas Sparks front. This novel was set in South Carolina and it featured a dual timeline - partially in 2010 and partially in the early 1950’s - linked by multiple generations of the same family. There was a mystery embedded along with the romance, in which the younger generation has to try to piece together what happened years ago that their older relatives aren’t telling them either because they can’t (dead or in a coma) or because they don’t want to (secrets buried deep within). It should have been good!

Unfortunately, Dreams of Falling was about 200 pages too long, the main character, Larkin, was borderline intolerable, and all of the conflicts were straight-up bizarre. I don’t want to get too far into the weeds about it because I don’t recommend this book, but one central example would be the fact that Larkin, who lives in New York at the beginning of the novel, is there because she’s trying to run away from her past. So far so good. At first we don’t know exactly what that past is, but over the course of the book - and these revelations are seriously dragged out in a way I’ve never experienced before - we learn that she’s running away primarily because she feels that her adoptive grandmother was too supportive and encouraging in her youth, which meant she didn’t realize how fat she was?? I’m simplifying a lot, but that was a huge part of the story, and it was really weird.

So, lesson learned on that front - it was a fun experiment that felt like a romantic treat, but it’s better to pick your own books. On that note, here are some romances that I highly recommend that you can look up and pick out for yourself if you want to. In no particular order and by no means exhaustive, this is the random assortment of excellent romantic titles that have come into my mind over the past week:

If you haven’t read it yet: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (duhhhh)

For a fun time: anything by Georgette Heyer

Something to sink your teeth into: Katherine by Anya Seton

Untraditional, contemporary love story: Fresh Water for Flowers by Valérie Perrin

To make yourself cry: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier OR The End of Loneliness by Benedict Wells

And with that, I am off to work at my OFFICE. Don’t forget to mail your valentines today (or tomorrow morning at the latest) so they arrive in time for the big day. I love you all.