Falling Together, Marisa de los Santos

Let’s just say, I shouldn’t have read it so soon after Sisterhood Everlasting, which left me with this deep sense of foreboding. It’s another story about friends looking for their missing friend after a long time apart, with third-person narration shared by all but not all of the friends, and an exotic locale, but there the similarities end.

I have this sort of strained relationship with de los Santos. I wrote about my undying adoration of Love Walked In here, and my frustration with its sequel here. This one fell somewhere in between — it lacked thorough, unstinting delightfulness of LWI, but it had some pretty good passages.

It’s kind of like when you see a movie sequel and there are lots of good parts, but those good parts are good mostly just because they remind you of the good parts of the original. So, oddball supporting characters. Highly sympathetic main character. Descriptions of places you want to live in/foods you want to eat. And, of course: Excellent dialogue.

[on a transcontinental flight]

Pen said to Will, “These seats are insane. I feel like I’m a Poppin’ Fresh roll, unpopped.”

“I feel like a jack-in-the-box,” said Will, “in the box.”

“Jesus freaking Christ, please tell me this isn’t the way you guys always talk.”

Well, dear readers, it is.