The Story Of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg – 240 pages
Book Blurb:
A moving novel about three people who find their way back from loss and loneliness to a different kind of happiness. Arthur, a widow, meets Maddy, a troubled teenage girl who is avoiding school by hiding out at the cemetery, where Arthur goes every day for lunch to have imaginary conversations with his late wife, and think about the lives of others. The two strike up a friendship that draws them out of isolation. Maddy gives Arthur the name Truluv, for his loving and positive responses to every outrageous thing she says or does. With Arthur’s nosy neighbor Lucille, they create a loving and unconventional family, proving that life’s most precious moments are sweeter when shared.
My Review: 4 stars
Elizabeth Berg rarely disappoints, and with The Story of Arthur Truluv, she flat out warms your heart. This is the perfect book to read in between heavy or suspenseful books. It’s charming, sweet, meaningful and touching. It’s a great book to gift to just about anyone in your life.
Each character has their own private sorrows, which allows the reader to actualize their mental state. Their meeting and way in which they come to be so important to one another is moving and realistic. Baking and cemeteries are shockingly used as coping mechanisms. Having someone to listen, to care for, to receive care from and to trust are the basic themes in this book.
This will sit on my shelf for years to come to remember the sweetness the pages contain.
Quotes I liked:
Who cares what happens before we’re born and after we die? The question is, what do we do in the meantime?”
-“What girls do to each other is beyond description. No Chinese torture comes close.”
-“Actors, painters, dancers, comedians, even just ordinary people doing ordinary things, what are they without an audience of some sort? See, that’s what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness, I am the great appreciator that’s what I do and that’s all I want to do.”
-“What is it that makes a family? Certainly no document does, no legal pronouncement or accident of birth. No, real families come from choices we make about who we want to be bound to, and the ties to such families live in our hearts.”
-“Everybody has thoughts that shame them. You can’t control them coming in. But you don’t have to let them all out.”
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