Belong to Me: A Novel
by Marisa De Los Santos
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Book Summary Information
Author: Marisa De Los SantosEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 0061240273
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: William Morrow
Book Reviews of Belong to Me: A Novel
Book Review: No cliche left unturned
Summary: 1 Stars
This was the March selection for our local book club. We read Marisa de los Santos' "Love Walked In" last year. However, I did not immediately make the connection that "Belong To Me" is a sequel; I was probably 1/2 way through the book when a light bulb went off.
A good sequel continues the action/motivations of the first book, while telling a fresh story and further developing the characters; on those counts, "Belong to Me" is unsatisfying and weakly structured. The jacket blurb suggests that this is a story of a misfit in suburbia, and her nemesis, a "Ms. Perfect" named Piper Truitt...however that angle is tossed aside within a few pages. We learn little, even nothing, about the affluent Philadelphia suburb in which the characters live -- what makes it special or unique, or even safe, or prosperous. We are told that protagonist Cornelia feels a "sudden urge" to give up urban life and live in the 'burbs, but this is never explained nor do we learn the roots of her sudden conventional behavior.
"Belong To Me" ambitiously tries to tell several stories, and intertwine them. Cornelia and her handsome physician husband Teo are trying to have a baby, haunted by a miscarriage that occurred right on 9/11. Perfect housewife Piper is caring for a dying friend, a mission that disrupts her own marriage. Teen genius Dev is searching for his unknown father. There are several other minor threads, barely completed, about Cornelia's brother and the baby he is having with a reluctant girlfriend.
It takes a lot of skill to do this kind of book, and even more to avoid obvious cliches. "Belong To Me" veers on the edge of a cliff, then plunges into soap opera territory. Piper cares for her dying friend Elizabeth, but since we never had a chance to know them as close friends, we only get to see the sentimental treacly parts. Of course Elizabeth's death is horrifying -- but we can't care much about a woman we never get to know, who only exists in the novel to make us feel "sad". Piper herself seems to learn nothing; after driving her husband away because of her intense focus on her friend's situation, instead of finding herself divorced and alone in suburbia, she immediately falls in love with her dead friend's husband and moves in with him! Seriously, such "bounce back" relationships are typically doomed, and there is something creepy about appropriating a late friend's husband without so much as a couple month long waiting period.
Though set in the early 2000s, "Belong To Me" has an retro feel, with it's emphasis on the Peyton Place like goings-on of a small suburb, as if it existed outside of cities, culture, media. Piper, a woman of about 30 (and hence born in the early 70s) voices the idea that "there is no room in their suburb for a divorced woman" and then acts like divorce is strange or shocking -- this is bizarre, considering divorce is so common today and remarriage accepted completely, even in public figures. Piper and Cornelia are Generation Y-ers, who grew up in the 90s; it is not credible they feel this way.
I think the author has taken a easy way out by making majority of the characters very wealthy, so that contemporary issues about status, income, employment, even the astronomical costs of housing in a posh Philly suburb, are never even glancingly considered. Really fine writers, like the late Laurie Colwin, could take such material and make it breezy, witty and amusing. But De Los Santos, who prose is often richly poetic, takes it all with grim seriousness, as if a rich doctor's wife (with no discernible career, education or goals) is exactly as sympathetic as struggling single mom Lake, who has to work as a waitress to support Dex, the illegitimate son she conceived with Teo.
Speaking of that -- while there are a lot of unusual names in the world, a character whose actual name is "Devereaux Tremain" lacks credibility. That's a soap opera name, or perhaps a stage name for a Las Vegas performer. In fact, there are hardly any characters with ordinary American names: Cornelia, Teo, Piper, Lake, Devereaux. This gives the book an atmosphere of a romance novels, or the afore-mentioned soap opera, and that entirely derails any chance it has to make us look seriously at the death of a young mother from cancer.
Believe it or not, really moving human stories can be told about people who are not rich, not married to doctors, not living in multi-million dollar enclaves...about children who are not bona fide geniuses. And it is possible that the friends you make along the way will not turn out to be "SURPRISE!" the illegitimate (unknown!) children of your spouse. When serious novels by poets -- Marisa De Los Santos has genuine writing ability, when she steers away from cliches -- utilize the themes of soap operas and TV series, I want to shout "it's time for us to start turning off the TV" and for would-be authors to pay more attention to real human lives for inspiration.
In conclusion: I can't really recommend this book, even as a sequel to readers who enjoyed "Love Walked In". It is overlong, cliched and sudsy and worst of all, it is a boring and overly long read.
Summary of Belong to Me: A Novel
Everyone has secrets. Some we keep to protect ourselves, others we keep to protect those we love.
A devoted city dweller, Cornelia Brown surprised no one more than herself when she was gripped by the sudden, inescapable desire to leave urban life behind and head for an idyllic suburb. Though she knows she and her beloved husband, Teo, have made the right move, she approaches her new life with trepidation and struggles to forge friendships in her new home. Cornelia's mettle is quickly tested by judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt. Perfectly manicured, impeccably dressed, and possessing impossible standards, Piper is the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she would find in suburbia. A saving grace soon appears in the form of Lake. Over a shared love of literature and old movies, Cornelia develops an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman who has also recently arrived in town, ostensibly to send her perceptive and brilliant son, Dev, to a school for the gifted.
Marisa de los Santos's literary talents shine in the complex interactions she creates between these three women. She deftly explores the life-altering roller coaster of emotions Piper faces as she cares for two households, her own and that of her cancer-stricken best friend, Elizabeth. Skillfully, de los Santos creates an enigmatic and beguiling character in Lake, who draws Cornelia closer even as she harbors a shocking secret. And from the first page until the exhilarating conclusion, de los Santos engages readers with Cornelia, who, while trying to adapt to her new surroundings, must remain true to herself. As their individual stories unfold, the women become entangled in a web of trust, betrayal, love, and loss that challenges them in ways they never imagined, and that ultimately teaches them what it means for one human being to belong to another.
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