I grabbed it from a Little Free Library down the road because I liked the row of rain boots on the cover. I fell in love with it on the second page when the author describes a character, Cornelia, who loves the city. She puts it like this:
Image Barnes&Noble |
“I loved the noise, opening my window to let a confetti of sound fly in. I loved how leaving my apartment, in pursuit of newspapers or bags of apricots or bagels so perfect they were not so much bagels as odes to gloss and chewiness, never just felt like going out, but like setting out, adrenaline singing in my veins, the unexpected glancing off storefronts, simmering in grates and ledges, pooling in stairwells, awaiting me around every corner, down every alleyway.
Imagine an enormous strutting peacock with the whole jeweled city for a tail.”
Belong to Me, by Marisa de los Santos, has so far shaped a world I love. This book, found by chance on the side of the road, makes it all the more wonderful. Or, in the words of my oldest daughter, “Awesical”–the combination of awesome and magical.