From the author of Shelter Me--a funny and poignant novel about having your heart in the right place.
Newly divorced Dana Stellgarten has always been unfailingly nice- even
to telemarketers-but now her temper is wearing thin. Money is tight, her
kids are reeling from their dad's departure, and her Goth teenage niece
has just landed on her doorstep.
As she enters the slipstream of
post-divorce romance and is befriended by the town queen bee, Dana finds
that the tension between being true to yourself and being liked doesn't
end in middle school... and that sometimes it takes a real friend to
help you embrace adulthood in all its flawed complexity. ~~ synopsis from Goodreads
My thoughts on Deep Down True ~~
First of all, I need to confess that this book first caught my attention because of the cover ~ I think it is beautiful. I love blue and this cover has a whole lotta blue. Seriously, a cover can do it for me ~ give me a beautiful cover and I am going to want to delve into the story!
So this is a great story about a family thrown into turmoil when the parents divorce. I think we all can relate to that, either personally or because of someone close to us.
It also covers the teen years and how complicated that can be. And are adults really that much different? We all want to be liked and to fit in, don't we? Dana, the mom and Morgan, her teenage daughter, just want to be accepted by the 'cool kids' ~ but at what cost? There are some good life lessons in this story.
I really liked the story, the characters and the author's writing. I especially like Alder, Dana's Goth teenage niece, who shows up on her doorstep because of troubles at home. She has an old soul and is a really great kid ~ what an asset she was to the family and I just loved how she just always seemed to know what to say and do. She did not judge people and seemed to see the good in everyone and every situation. I wish I had Alder in my life.
And I love it when I find the connection in the story to the title that the author gave her story. I get 'deep down true'.
Juliette Fay has another book out, Shelter Me, that sounds great too. I am going to be adding that one to my TBR list.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the book ~~
'People want to be liked. They do things or go along with stuff because they are afraid they'll get shut out if they don't.' ~~Alder (isn't that great?)
The memory of a book, Dana mused as she turned off the light and headed out of the room.
Wouldn't life be so easy if that's all we needed to feel comforted?
'But you don't always see what I see either. And sometimes it's the people closest to us that we don't see as clearly as we see other things.' ~~ Dana
