by Kristine Cuer

Created on: April 23, 2009

I fell in love with the cover of this book: showing the lower body of a girl wearing black school shoes with uneven socks, standing in some dry soil (maybe it was fall when the photo-shoot was made). I also fell in love with the first few lines of the book: "My life-my real life-started when a man walked into it, a handsome stranger in a perfectly cut suit, and yes, I know how that sounds." But after reading this book, I get to realize two things: never-really judge the book by its cover and a good beginning doesn't always means a good ending.

It's written from two point of views: Cornelia and Claire's point of view. Cornelia is a petite coffee-shop owner who had a knack for movies and at the age of 30 still dreams of a Cary-Grant type of guy to walk in to her life which came true when Martin walked in to her coffee shop to grab something to drink. Unfortunately, most of our dream guys are not necessarily our Mr. Right and Cornelia had the same fate. Claire on the other hand is a little girl who had been abandoned by her Mom and neglected by her father and yes, it turned out that the father of Claire is Martin. But although Cornelia is losing interest on Martin, she had learned to love Claire and the more they spent their time together, the more Claire and Cornelia like each other till it came to a point that Claire wants Cornelia to be her Mom and Cornelia wants Claire to be her daughter.

If you'd actually think about it, it's actually nice to read about something beyond a woman-to-man love story. This book is suppose to give us something like that. The story of how Cornelia found the right man for her but at the same time, it's also a story of how two complete strangers could form a mother and daughter love for each other. But I guess what did not work for me was the way Marisa de los Santos had developed some dialogues in the book. I love the first lines and I also liked some other lines with in the book but sometimes I just don't get it why she have to relate a certain scenario to a certain movie especially if it's Cornelia's point of view. I get the point that Cornelia is a huge movie fan but sometimes they're just too much.

If there's something though that had kept my interest in reading this book, that would be the occasional mentioning of the author of some traits, food and traditions of Filipinos. I should have taken a hint that Marisa is a Filipino basing from her last name. But when I first read the authors description, there was no hint that she's a Filipino-American author. I was actually amazed to read Claire enjoying Filipino food and learning some Filipino traits.

As a whole, there's no question that the author is a poet, the story is good but sometimes some things are better kept simple.

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