 Laura Pedersen’s newest book is a collection of short stories, each one touching on a different aspect of love. Each story is a sweet, simple little tale and each explores love in a different way. Some are quite traditional – such as the story of blooming summer love – and others are decidedly untraditional – such as the love between a man and a dolphin.
It’s an easy read – something you can pick up and put down and come back to again on a lazy afternoon. It’s probably not something you’ll plow right through simply because there are a lot of stories in one and not an overall tale. My favorite story is the first one that appears in the book called, “Gus Hunts for a Job”. It’s a sweet little story about Gus, the family dog, and the many “jobs” he plays throughout his life with each of the children in his family. After each one grows up, he gets a new job with the next child, fulfilling their wishes and desires, no matter what the task, from tagging along for boating trips or playing dress up. Gus finds his place and his job again and again, fulfilling his life’s goal and always staying up to the task set before him. Actually, this story made me cry. It probably wasn’t really meant to, but having lost my own childhood dog earlier this year made me think of him. It was a sweet memory to be left with.
Though most of the stories are sweet and fuzzy, a few are a bit too weird for my taste. “Love Lucy” is the story of a man and a dolphin, who are in love with each other. Now, it’s not some sick, twisted story in any way, it’s more of a transcendent love that I don’t really understand since they often refer to the main character as not only loving Lucy, the dolphin, but being in love with Lucy. Though I’m open to new ideas, this particular story didn’t really do it for me. It just reminds me too much of people’s strange sexual desires (which unfortunately I have learned about thanks to the Internet), even though there’s no sexuality mentioned. I’d just skip that if I were you.
The other stories have sweet little tales, from blooming love while away at summer camp, to two girls sending secret love emails to two lonely people in their town, to a woman who leaves the bright lights of New York to head to Alaska to meet and possibly marry an Alaskan man who she met through a magazine ad.
If you’re looking for an easy breezy summertime read that will sometimes make you smile and feeling fuzzy on the inside, pick up this book and save it for your lazy summer days when all you want to do is kick back, relax and enjoy the afternoon. |
