Rating: 
Summary: I Love It, Love It, Love It
Review: I loved, loved, loved Coming Back to Me by Caroline Leavitt. The heart-wrenching story is told without sentimentality, yet it made me ache all over for the characters, especially for Gary, as he is the character we get to know most intimately. All the main characters -- Gary, Molly, Suzanne -- have survived serious tragedies and are living through the worst of trials, but they carry on in spite of it and are ultimately redeemed by good, honest love -- and hope, which doesn't always come easy for them, but which they struggle to keep alive nonetheless. Nice doses of humor, sex, and flawed people doing flawed things are thrown into the mix like good spices in contrasting but complementary quantities. Leavitt's writing style is easy and accessible, her metaphors and images are natural and taken from the commonplace without every being trite or contrived. I feel I know her characters personally and well. Heck, I am her characters, as their emotions and actions ring clear, clean, and true on every level. The plot of Coming Back to Me is intriguing and kept me reading from start to finish, never once boring or confusing me. The pace is perfectly measured so that it seems completely organic to the characters and the story, with critical reveals coming at just the right times to intensify suspense and keep us reading and rooting for things to work out. As a writer myself, I know that such pacing is extremely difficult to achieve, but Leavitt makes it look easy, despite the considerable skill and intellect it required. I would put Coming Back to Me in a league with the works of Anne Tyler, whom I adore. Though the book cover quotes a review comparing Leavitt to Sue Miller, I have to say I enjoyed Leavitt's work much more than Miller's (even though I do like Miller). I've ordered another Leavitt novel, Living Other Lives, and can't wait to read it. I intend to work my way through her entire list, although working hardly describes my Leavitt reading experience. Reveling is more apt -- reveling in the depths of the characters as their lives and emotions are revealed to me steadily and honestly, delivered without flinching and with crystal clarity. Caroline Leavitt and Coming Back to me are true gems. What's not to love? Highly, highly recommended. I can't get enough of her -- Really!
Rating:
Summary: More, Ms. Leavitt!
Review: I picked up this book at the library and stayed up all night reading. What a writer Ms. Leavitt is! The characters were so alive, and the situation so gripping that I was spellbound. I've just put holds on all her other novels and cannot wait to read them. More, Ms. Leavitt!
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