Book Review: "Belong to Me"

This book is the sequel to "Love Walked In," which my book club read a couple of months ago. I got this one at the library, but I have a feeling I'll end up buying it, especially since Marisa de los Santos is writing a third in the series as we speak.

I love Cornelia Brown Sandoval. I wish she was real so she could be my friend. Because no matter what's going on in the lives of the people around her -- death, adultery, unrequited love, stalking, a child that the father didn't know he had fathered -- she can somehow make it better.

(This is, of course, crap. There is no way any of these things could be resolved so neatly in real life. But that's why this book is in the fiction section.)

A quick summary: Cornelia and Teo got married and moved from NYC to the suburbs of Philly after Cornelia suffered a miscarriage and 9/11 happened the next day. The neighborhood they move into is swarming with mean housewives and miserable husbands, led by the Queen of Mean, Piper. (Yeah. I know. I guess she needed a ridiculous name, though.) Just when Cornelia thinks she's not going to have any kind of friend in this new life, she meets Lake (I know) at the grocery store. They are like kindred spirits, but neither of them is completely honest with the other. Lake's son Dev falls for Cornelia's sort-of-stepdaughter Claire (from the previous book) and the two of them plus Dev's friend Aidan go on a hunt to find Dev's birth father.

Piper's best friend Elizabeth dies from cancer, and then Piper's husband Kyle leaves her, and even though it takes them a long time to get there, Cornelia helps Piper through it. Just by being Cornelia.

Cornelia helps Lake with Dev, plus tries to be a good friend when Lake falls for her next door neighbor.

Oh, and Cornelia's brother surprises everyone by showing up with a pregnant girlfriend. And since Cornelia is Cornelia, she stands firm by her brother until he realizes that he is meant to be a father.

And then, just when things seem to be working out smoothly for Cornelia (who by this time is pregnant to term with hers and Teo's baby) ... the bomb is dropped: Dev figures out that Teo is in fact his birth father, Lake confirms it (she had Teo didn't meet face-to-face until this confrontation, FYI), Teo is gobsmacked and Cornelia freaks the hell out. As a person would.

That was the hardest part of the book to read. Harder than Elizabeth dying of cancer, even. Because my heart just broke for Cornelia. All she wants and has tried to do for these two books is make sure everyone around her is ok. Even when she doesn't like them very much... she wants them to be ok. And she does whatever she can to help it happen. And not to say that this Dev bombshell is hers alone to bear... but, damn. Poor Cornelia.

(Also... I had a feeling something was going to throw us for a loop. Cover art can make for a good clue. Why are there four pairs of boots? Teo, Cornelia, the baby. 1, 2, 3. The fourth belonged to someone...).

In the end, things seem to strike a balance so that everyone is ok. Which makes Cornelia feel ok, which is supposed to make the reader feel ok. But I did not. I wanted all the other characters in this book to physically get down on their knees and kiss the ground Cornelia walks on. (They love her, of course... but I want to see her loved like nobody has ever been loved before. She deserves it.)

I really liked this book, and more than 50% of why is because of Marisa de los Santos. The woman is a linguistic artist. Her writing is so melodic, her turns of phrase are so well crafted. She is inspiring. She loves to write, and it radiates in every paragraph. I love when writers play with words. I picture her smiling when she thinks up some catchy bit of alliteration or a funny description (my favorite in this book: "a wildly fruitless squat thrust") and that makes me happy. I can't wait to read the next one.