The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley

 

Have you ever taken a long cross-country trip?  If so, who did you go with?  I’ve gone on various trips, but I have never gone on a true cross-country trip to the Pacific Ocean.

Tanner is twenty-one years old, and her life has stopped.  She was a star soccer player that had won a full ride to college.  A tragic accident ended her soccer career and her scholarship.  Now she is at home living in her parents’ basement with no plan.  Her parents decided that she will help a family friend by staying with her mother, Louise, as she is having a hard time getting around after hip surgery.  Once there, Tanner and Louise are learning to live with each other when Louise needs Tanner to drive her cross country to visit an old friend.   Why did Louise need to make such a quick get away?  What is her history?  Will Tanner be able to move forward with her life?

I really loved this story.  This is destined to be one of my favorite books of 2024.  Things I enjoyed were:

-        An unlikely friendship pairing of an eighty-four-year-old woman and a twenty-one-year-old woman.

-        Both Tanner and Louise learn from each other and grow.

-        Great mystery – I never knew what was going to happen next!

-        Humor was throughout the book and constantly had me chuckling.

-        Road trip!  I always like a good road trip in a novel or movie.

-        The romance between August and Tanner was sweet.

-        I think everyone in our book club loved the green Jaguar that came bursting out of Louise’s shed.  What a car for a road trip!

This was the February selection for the Page-turners Book Club at the Kewaunee Public Library.  We had a great discussion about it today.

Favorite Quotes:

“Though Louise wished it were not a universal truth, there were only a handful of women in this world who could pull of a bare face.  The girl in front of her was not one of them.” – The universal truth made me think of the first line of Pride and Prejudice.

“She grabbed a pillow beside her head, jammed it over her face, and screamed into it – the only recourse she could think of, aside from taking a hammer to the clock and hitting it repeatedly until it splintered into toothpicks, which, of course, was what she really wanted to do.” – I have felt this way about alarms my entire life.

“Regret.  Now that was a feeling Tanner was wildly intimate with.”  - Great discussion of regret in this entire section of the book.

“In life there were two kinds of friends:  friends who would wish you well on you journey to battle, and friends who would jump in the trenches with you.” – Isn’t that the truth!

Overall, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise was a fun, unique novel that kept me guessing and entertained throughout.

Book Source:  Checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley

 

Have you ever had a dream that came true?

I have had this happen a couple of times and it’s always a déjà vu moment.  My favorite dream was when I dreamed the solution to a math problem in high school.  I woke up and wrote down the answer and then went back to sleep.  I wish that would happen more often!

Mia Graydon has been having dreams about a mysterious stranger for years.  Mia and her husband Harrison have just moved to a new small town.  Harrison is a doctor and after losing a young patient during a routine surgery, he wants a fresh start.  Mia is an artist, and she is trying to find her place in the small town.  What Mia wants most of all is a baby, but after another miscarriage, she is not sure it’s meant to be.  At a local store, she meets the mysterious stranger, Oliver, who has been in her dreams.  She discovers that Oliver has also dreamed about her too.  What does it all mean?  How will this impact Mia’s marriage?

I really enjoyed You Were there Too.  I like books that keep me guessing until the end and You Were There Too fulfilled that need.  I don’t want to say too much more and ruin the plot for everyone.  I enjoyed that the plot was unique and tied up all of the ends.  I also enjoyed the three main characters of Mia, Harrison, and Oliver.   I felt they were very well developed with no one being a villain.

We met for our book club virtually Tuesday at lunch and it seemed that everyone felt the same as me about this novel.  We liked it and how it was unpredictable.

Favorite Quote: “Maybe all that matters is that love is a circle. Infinite. Eternal. Present, even when the person you want to be there most is absent.”

Overall, You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley was a great novel with a unique plot and well-developed characters.

Book Source:  Copy from the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!!