This was originally written as a screenplay, then turned into a book, then turned into a movie. Just thought I'd mention that.
"I have spent my entire life trying to give everybody else what they want. I'm not complaining. I like to be of service. I find great purpose in it. And no one was more surprised than me when my old routines didn't work for me any more. Somewhere along the way, I got sucked dry and started feeling like the mountain mother with sixteen kids who wakes up one morning and realizes that she's just a vessel, a way station where life passed through before it passed her by."
Ave Maria Mulligan is a 35-year-old Italian pharmacist that's spent her whole life in Big Strong Gap, Virginia, in coal mining country. It's 1978 and while she seems generally pretty satisfied with her life, she's somewhat bothered at being an old spinster in a place where most people get married in their teens, and the pickings are slim. She does have a handsome best guy friend Theodore that she'd love to get involved with, but Theodore doesn't quite feel like getting sexy and settling down with her, darn it. Then there's Jack, a guy Ave Maria went to school with that she's starting to get feelings for ever since she walked in and saw him in his underwear--but he's already dating and getting quite serious with a divorcee named Sweet Sue (to distinguish her from the other Sues). And those are pretty much the eligible dudes in BSG as far as I can tell.
Ave Maria's dad died a while back and she can't really say she misses him--he never seemed too fond of her. But she was very close with her mother, who just died recently. But after her death, her mother left Ave Maria a letter saying that her father was really an Italian guy named Mario who wouldn't marry her, and she married Mr. Mulligan for the usual reasons of not having a bastard child. The lawyer's wife is an eavesdropping gossip and the entire town knows about it in five minutes. Ave Maria actually doesn't feel too bad about the situation with the dads, but she does get interested in tracking down her lost relatives and father and eventually going to Italy. Her evil aunt on her not-bio-dad's side starts demanding everything Ave Maria inherited and Ave Maria promptly sells it all off to her teenage employee Pearl that she mentors. Hah. Also, Theodore expresses some interest and backs off, proposes and backs off.... and Jack breaks off his engagement with Sweet Sue and proposes to Ave Maria, but he seriously does it in one of the worst ways possible. Pretty much along the lines of "I got forty acres and a mule and we're the only two single ones left in town, how 'bout it?" Suffice it to say Ave Maria is not swept away by the romance of it all and turns him down, leaving Jack smarting. Finally getting marriage proposals isn't as fun as it seems, especially when you like both dudes but they propose in such a way where you know you can't go through with it.
Oh yeah, and then there's the time Elizabeth Taylor and her politician husband visited the town, a real life event. Also, at one point the town dogs started boinking in front of everyone. I don't know if that happened during the event, but bwahahahah anyway.
Anyway, this is generally the story about Ave Maria deciding to change her life and possibly take her leave of BSG altogether, pruning things out of her life and looking for other things. I liked how she was portrayed as a woman who's generally okay with how her life's going but definitely has her fears about say, getting into a relationship. She doesn't want to have to change herself for a guy and then feels like that's why she can't get married. I enjoyed how she'd occasionally sass back and tell someone off--particularly the hot teenage girls picking on her employee, or Jack when he's failing at proposing. I loved how she handled the evil aunt situation. I love that she's a book nerd who's into Chinese face reading.
I loved this for Ave Maria's voice. She is just fun to read in first person. I love a good first person snappy narrator and Ave Maria is just entertaining to listen to talking, even if this isn't like, a major events novel and more chick-lit-ish. As for everyone else, most characters are drawn well and have their clear personalities and other aspects that stand out. Though I wasn't a super fan of Jack--he's okay, he's a very nice dude but I don't know if I was captivated with him as a match for Ave Maria per se. Though I will say that he definitely makes some improvements after that sad proposal, including doing one very sweet big gesture that did more or less win me over.
The copy of the book I got is movie-branded and has some extras in it, like a conversation between the author and BSG's town librarian (a book character). The author describes Ave Maria like this:
"Ave Maria is the woman you can count on. She's your best friend, the person you go to for advice, the person who has a cool head in a crisis. Maybe she's a loner and lives a life of service and not of intimacy. She's the woman that you wonder about. You hope she finds a nice man. You hope she's happy; she certainly seems to be. That's what the novel is about. A person may appear to be one thing, but inside of them there's a river of complexities and fears and desires. When you find that out, there is no end to the depth of emotion. The book is really about the interior life and feelings of that woman you know; perhaps she even reminds you of yourself."
I just liked how everything was handled. It's a small town story, it's not full of huge epic moments and yet in a way it kind of is. Four stars.
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