Gather Belong To Me Authored By Marisa De Los Santos Readable In Version

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"On a recent rainy Monday, I'd tried imagining the last month and a half of my life as a feature film, a game I play, secretly, fairly often, and that I'm convinced other people play, secretly too," confesses Cornelia Brown, whose witty observations and small epiphanies in the pages of Marisa de los Santos' Belong to Me surround readers like the warm embrace of an old friend.
Cornelia and her impossibly handsome husband, Teo Sandoval, made their debut in the author's Love Walked In,



As this book begins, the couple is settling into their first house on an idyllic street in a picturesque Philadelphia suburb.
Cornelia is inexplicably drawn to "this unsurprising place" that she yearns to call home, but her neighbors are less sure of how these transplanted, apparently childless urbanites will fare in their midst.
Especially Piper Truitt. The epitome of blonde cool, this demanding mother of two has created her own version of perfection within the walls of a home that sits across the street from Cornelia's.
From their early encounter at a dinner party, the two are at odds, a situation that Cornelia, adrift from her familiar surroundings, cannot conceive how to navigate.




As the novel progresses, new characters emerge, We meet Elizabeth, Piper's best friend, who's battling cancer, as well as Toby, Cornelia's brother, and Clare, the bright and compassionate teen familiar to readers of Love Walked In.
Then there's Lake, a single mother working at a local Italian restaurant, who throws Cornelia a timely lifeline in the form of a dish of spaghetti alla puttanesca.
Lake's son Dev, a preternaturally giftedyearold, becomes Cornelia's unexpected kindred spirit, Deftly blending several tales at once, de los Santos' narrative is richly embroidered with intertwined lives and loves, As present circumstances are threatened by the revelation of past secrets, the friends forge a circle of strength and forgiveness that the reader, too, belongs to and will hate to leave when the last page is turned.
A triumphant testimony to the power of love, Belong to Me hums with the hope that pulls friends through the ups and downs that the years hold in store for everyone.




About the Author


Belong

to Me is Marisa de los Santos' second novel, Her bestselling debut, Love Walked In, a Barnes amp Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, has been optioned for film by Sarah Jessica Parker.
De los Santos' fiction is peopled with fully realized personalities, She explains, "When it comes to creating characters, I'm a cunning and unrepentant thief, I steal all kinds of qualities, quirks, and language from people I know and from total strangers, but there's no character in my novel who matches up with one person walking around the real world.
" The protagonist of Love Walked In, Cornelia Brown, makes her second appearance in the pages of Belong to Me, and de los Santos admits that readers may not have seen the last of her.
"She's a very hard girl to refuse, so if somewhere down the line she decides she's not finished with me, I'll have no choice but to write more of her story.
Actually, I'd love it if that happened, " Originally from Baltimore, de los Santos received a B, A. from the University of Virginia, an M, F. A. from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Ph, D. in English literature and creative writing from the University of Houston, The awardwinning poet currently teaches English at the University of Delaware and lives in Wilmington with her husband, David, and their children, Charles and Annabel.




From Our Booksellers


I was fooled into thinking this was going to be a fluffy chicklit kind of book.
Boy, was I wrong! I became so involved with these charming, fullydeveloped characters, The writing is so luscious! Like biting into a juicy peach, where every sense is touched and filled with delight and wonder, Dorothy Newmark, Freehold, NJ



You will like, love, and hate these characters, But ultimately, you will miss them once they're gone, All I can say is, I want more! Rosey McArdell, Apple Valley, MN



For anyone who has ever felt they don't fit in with the crowd.
Spunky and fierce, Marisa de los Santos rewrites the whole chicklit genre, Angel Ramandt, Ellicott City, MD



Reading Belong to Me was like eating a delicious candy bar that as it turns out just happens to be good for you.
Rebecca Fell, Hamilton, NJ At first I was resentful towards all the new characters in the story of Teo and Cornelia and Clare and then.
. . I was hooked and I didn't want to leave them, Really enjoyed the read. You know when you read a book about women that are friends, . and these friends just all fit together in a perfect little group, well this isn't about those storybook friends, This book is about real people, The snob. . free spirit. . cancer patient. . but you learn that really isn't who they are, there is much more to them and you realize how they can be friends, . I'm/way into the book and I think I love these people more than most characters I've ever read, Marisa de los Santos writing is so fluid, I can't wait to read more! Utterly readable, even if you haven't read Love Walked In, this story stands alone, The author a poet has a lovely fluid style, She makes the reader privy to all of the private thoughts and this is a VERY thoughtful bunch and weaves it all together with just enough history and background that the story makes sense.
And I especially enjoyed how it explored women's friendships the work it takes to make friends in adulthood, So often characters are "lifelong" friends or fall easily into friendship, Not here, and it was refreshing,
My only complaint was theyear old characters seemed so much more mature than their years, it was almost unbelievable,
But this is a great springtime read, It is a deep book masquerading as something lighter, Whenever I read one of Marisa de los Santos' novels, I just want to reach out and shake her and ask her, "WHY ARE YOU NOT WRITING POETRY ALREADY!" since de los Santos' writing style is flowery and drawn out.
Her novels are filled with situations that should only take a few pages to write, but the author frequently takes her sweet time just describing situations that her characters get into or the characters' thought process to the readers often times wasting time to stop and explain some random detail that pops into the character's head at random.


Belong to Me is a much better novel than the first novel in the author's Cornelia Brown series, which is Love Walked In.
Belong To Me had the makings of an intriguing novel thanks to there being long lost lovers, children who needed to have their paternity tested, love triangles, and newlyweds celebrating the arrival of their first child.
Yet, de los Santos had her main character, Cornelia wax poetic one too many times for my taste causing the story to go fromdown to.
/stars.

Cornelia's character is a serious motormouth, She frequently speaks in a contrived way that makes you want to infiltrate the novel and have a one on one talk with her explaining how in the real world, NOBODY else would tolerate flowery dialogues because normal people will cut you off two minutes into your monologue about your loving of random pasta dishes.
Not to mention this character is beyond nice in an irritating way that makes you feel interchangeably bad for her when others tell her off and slightly gleeful that someone actually said the things you were thinking about her.


The pacing of this novel is a tad too slow and a goodpages could have been trimmed off the novel's framework, but as a whole, the novel is definitely worth reading.
Nevertheless, I would caution readers to have extreme patience with Cornelia, What a sweet story really, with nice poetic references and beautiful, loving people that don't exist anywhere but in books like this, So, yeah of course, I hate them, . Mostly because I'm that woman, . . the urbanite who moved to the suburbs and I'm that woman longing for the security blanket that is estrogeninduced friendship, Of course I didn't have the hot doctor husband and the financial security and BA in Art History, But, you know, . . those are really just the perks of the story, not the meat, . . Anyway, lord knows I tried to look for that bond, that is, . . stay with me, folks but the women in my suburban setting do not quote from Cukor's The Women, Or Hell, let's be real, the new version coming out will suffice, They aren't interested in new relationships and they most certainly do not hold dinner parties, . . or, at least, none that I know of, So, forgive me if I snub my nose at this wispy Winona Ryderesque Cornelia character and I do that with the utmost respect to de los Santos as I really did like this book because she achieves what I'm still waiting foryears out.

I have to admit that this would make a great chick flick, I envision Nora Ephron and see an all star cast of Daniel Craig, Kiera Knightly, Kelly Ripa's husband can he act It doesn't matter, and yes, maybe they CAN dig up Winona, . . I can't imagine that she's busy, . . Maybe they can get those Twilight kiddos to play the wise beyondtheiryearsyear olds, I envision some great movie tieins from Corningware and Roche Pharmeceuticals, . .

I just reread that and it sounds like I hated the book, I really didn't, Chock me up as bitter, . . And if you showed up at my door with a plate of cookies, I wouldn't necessarily turn you away, Winona, . honest. .