The Odd Couple

     She was pleasant but a tad ditzy, walking around town in technicolor tights and dresses, content with her waitressing job at the Buttered Bun, a  local coffeeshop. He, on the other hand, was an A-lister from London. Big business guy, extreme adventurer, handsome, worldly and sophisticated.
   But now he--Will--is in a wheelchair, and she---Louisa--needs a new job and has limited options. Unless working in a chicken processing plant or being a pole dancer can be considered choices.
   Louisa, Lou for short, and Will meet. She will be his companion for six months. And so it begins. A love story unlike any I have read before.
  Yes, I expected these two unlikely souls to get together at some point, but their journey as a couple is quite remarkable. This is not a cutesy, love-at-first sight tale. In fact, they don't really like each other much at first. Will is morose and detached from everything and everyone from his previous life and makes Lou's job miserable. Seems like she'll never break through.
  Over time, though, the two adjust. There are ups, downs, good days and bad. Big challenges and tiny victories for them both. With simple outings Will slowly starts to engage in life again, and Lou gets a taste of the world outside her little village. While she becomes a new friend and social director, Will assumes the role of teacher as he pushes Lou to try new music, new food, new books and movies.
  All very copacetic, agree?
  Not so fast. Although confined to a wheelchair, Will is a man of action, and he's got a plan. Although he can't feed himself, get dressed, bathe or travel without assistance, he can still choose how he will live these next few months and how he may--or may not--end it all.
   And so it continues. Can Lou make life worthwhile for Will? Will she find enough stimulating trips and activities for him to balance out the monotony and melancholy and infections and fevers and hospital stays?
  I loved Lou's conviction. She researched. She made a calendar. She planned. And Will came along and enjoyed the ride. And six months passed. Decision time came.
   I stayed up well past midnight last night to see how it all turned out. Very few books have that power for a woman who gets sleepy at nine, but there's no way I could have waited until the next day.
   Jo Jo Moyes is some storyteller! The book moves quickly but leaves a mark. It's more than a love story, although that's a big part of the last quarter of the book. Bigger than the couple's growing friendship and affection was the question it raised about how we live. Do we push? Do we step outside our boundaries? These are questions that pop up in many books that I read, but somehow this story with these characters made me think more carefully about how I answered them.
   The Push From the Book: Public libraries can't get every book in the universe. No library can, which is why we're lucky to be a part of a library system. Bethel Tulpehocken Library did not have this book, assigned reading for me as part of a book club selection. I borrowed it from Sinking Spring!
  Know this: more than 16,000 books and materials circulating to library users in Bethel come from OTHER libraries in our system or state. If you want a book that's not on our shelf it doesn't mean you have to go out and buy it. Ask someone at the circ desk to find it for you. Or you can go online and select the book, which will be shipped to Bethel. So easy. So convenient. Sharing is a good thing.

Traveling to Tea Country

  Shona Patel, author of Teatime for the Firefly, grew up on a tea plantation and recreated her richly green home turf, Assam, India, as the backdrop of a tender love story. For tea-drinkers like me who relish a soothing  cuppa to start--or break away from--a busy day, this book was like making a pilgrimage to tea Eden, all from the comfort of home. Patel dropped me inside the 1940s world of a bustling tea plantation and never skimped on the details: wineglass-shaped tea bushes growing in "waves and waves of undulated green," ebony-skinned tea pickers with colorful saris and thick pewter bangles, "pale lilac orchids sprouting from mossy armpits in branches."
   Halfway through I was so enthralled I went online to investigate tea plantation vacations. And there's a nice choice available, just for the record.
  Since finishing the book I'll  appreciate each sip a bit more than I did before. Tea may have the reputation as a soothing drink that invites quiet contemplation, but life among the Camellia assimica plants was rugged business back then. Encounters with man-eating leopards, venomous insects, rogue elephants, rhinos, even ghosts, were common. Is such a place the right place to cultivate love? That's the question that lingers as you move through the story.
   Maybe the tea plantation is the perfect place for Layla and Manik Deb. Earlier she was convinced she'd be a spinster because she was born beneath an unlucky star. Though highly educated, Layla believed her destiny was predetermined by her Hindu horoscope. So it would be impossible to move forward with former Rhodes scholar Manik, the handsome friend of her grandfather who is already engaged.
   Unbeknownst to Layla, Manik formulates a plan to escape the marriage and create a new life--not as a civil servant, but an assistant manager on a remote tea plantation. How they finally marry and flourish amidst the steamy jungles in a company bungalow kept me glued to each page. This, after all, is a love story, and the romantic in me enjoyed the flowering relationship in a world full of beauty and adversity. In addition to the natural world's obstacles, there was plenty to fear among the wives of the British managers employed by the tea company. They were an aloof, petty lot and rarely made Layla feel like part of the crowd. But they were minor threats compared to the upheaval underway in India at that time. As British colonial life ebbed, clashes between Hindus and Muslims became more prevalent and increasingly violent. Not even the tea plantation's distant location could insulate them from the discord, and both Layla and Manik's lives were interrupted--and threatened--during the turmoil.
  The warm, exotic feel of the book evaporates as Patel recreates this difficult period in India's history, but since her characters can't escape it, neither can we. How they responded during the crisis and its aftermath is a testament to her characters' deep connection to their souls and each other. It warmed me, just like a good cup of tea.
The Push From the Book: I'll visit those tea vacation websites again. It's a dreamy thought, to visit that part of the world so faraway and different from my own, but Patel planted a tiny seed inside me. And it's starting to sprout. Visit India? You never know.