{"id":297,"date":"2008-12-28T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2008-12-28T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/mojo\/?p=297"},"modified":"2025-08-01T02:19:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T07:19:16","slug":"book-review-waiting-for-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/blog\/book-review-waiting-for-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Waiting for Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CoverWaiting for Spring<\/em><\/a>
\nby RJ Keller<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a long time since I threw common sense to the wind and stayed up to finish a book knowing how much I had to do the next day, but not resenting it the next day because it was totally worth it.<\/p>\n

This book has no spiffy genre classification. After some thought, I think I\u2019d call it \u201cliterary romance.\u201d I don\u2019t know what \u201cwomen\u2019s fiction\u201d is and I\u2019m not sure I really even know what \u201cchick lit\u201d is, but I\u2019m pretty sure it\u2019s not either of those. And you know, lately, I\u2019ve been very<\/em> happy with the books that haven\u2019t been easily classified.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the blurb:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the kind of pain she can see and smell and wrap with an ace bandage. It\u2019s the kind she tries to numb with sex and work and cleaning-cleaning-cleaning<\/em> the house. The kind that comes from enduring a lifetime of rejection. First from her mother\u2013whom Tess knows would have aborted her had the law allowed it\u2013then from a string of men whose names she can never remember. And finally, at age thirty-four, from her husband of ten years; the man who once promised to love her forever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You want angst? I gotcher angst right here<\/em>, pal. And this is the good stuff, the kind that jerks you around and bashes you over the head and makes you come back for more to see how it all ends. In my experience with literary fiction (one of which was an Oprah pick\u2014sue me), there seems to be some sort of unwritten rule about writing angst, which is to understate it, to let the subtleties of the angst dawn on the reader like a sunrise behind storm clouds.<\/p>\n

Problem with that approach is that A) I don\u2019t ever get to know or care about the characters enough to care about their angst and B) their angst isn\u2019t that big of a deal anyway; if the characters clearly don\u2019t care about their angst, why should I? So I\u2019ll read literary fiction, don\u2019t get me wrong, but later, I\u2019ll scratch my head and say (if asked), \u201cYeah, I think I read that book, but I don\u2019t remember the name or the author.\u201d I just remember dipping my toe in the wading pool of that world once upon a time.<\/p>\n

The main character, Tess, has angst and she<\/em> doesn\u2019t seem to care about her angst, either. But I<\/em> cared about her angst from the very first paragraph:<\/p>\n

They say actions speak louder than words. Maybe. But words do a hell of a lot more damage. Even well-meaning words spoken by well-meaning people.<\/p>\n

People like Sister Patricia Mary Theriault. She was my catechism teacher when I was seven years old. Until she ruined my life. [ \u2026 ]<\/p>\n

Then she told us about the bad soil. [ \u2026 ] But the only bad soil I heard about was this:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the Sower was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on and–\u201d<\/p>\n

Path. Trampled. Bad soil. [ \u2026 ]<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t let your hearts become trampled down, children. Keep them soft and fertile so you can feel God\u2019s love inside of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven years old. And already I knew I was in some deep shit. The kind that even Sister Patricia couldn\u2019t do anything about.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The twin hyperbolic allegories of \u201cuntil she ruined my life\u201d and \u201cSeven years old. And already I knew I was in some deep shit\u201d are not, actually, hyperbolic or allegorical, but the reader doesn\u2019t find out why or how until far, far into the book.<\/p>\n

You might be tempted to point out that this is simply excellent fiction infrastructure, to which I would say \u2026 yeah, I know. But I don\u2019t see that a whole lot anymore. As far as I can tell, the current writing fad is to make me, Random Reader, ask the question and then never let it linger like a good combination of spices on my tongue or let me savor the moment of enlightenment when\/if it happens.<\/p>\n

Instead, it will ask the question and proceed to answer it for me 2 pages later and sometimes, even worse, will over-explain it in case I didn\u2019t get it fast enough or thoroughly digest all the layers of subtext. I\u2019m very tired of being treated like an idiot in my fiction and, further, I hate that I actually have to call attention to this amazingly annoying trend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are quite a few laugh-out-loud lines, sharp. Wry.<\/p>\n

When Tess, age 34, takes Brian, age 25, as a lover, they finish, talk, then begin again not long after. Tess observes,<\/p>\n

Ready again. Twenty-five. Gotta love that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Keller also gives the reader glimpses of the spirituality that\u2019s woven all through the tale; they glimmer, like the gold threads in shot fabric:<\/p>\n

The stars, he said, were actually souls; all the souls that were too restless to be locked up in heaven. They were so restless that God let them stay outside at night to play.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And when an 8-year-old girl about to take her first communion asks Tess if she believes in God, Tess says:<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I believe in God. I just \u2026 I don\u2019t feel close to him in church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cReally? Why\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shrugged, even though I knew exactly why. I knew because I\u2019d felt that way since I was a little girl, sitting in my church clothes, listening to the Mass. Trying to feel His presence. Struggling to feel His love. But there was nothing there. Nothing but words I didn\u2019t completely understand and scary status. And then, one beautiful Sunday Spring morning when I was nine years old, something occurred to me. Something I never told anyone else.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not really in here. God doesn\u2019t live inside a building, and that\u2019s all a church is; just a building filled with lots of words.<\/em> [ \u2026 ]<\/p>\n

Because Anne [of Green Gables] said that if she really wanted to talk to God, a real true prayer, then she\u2019d have to go outside to do it. She\u2019s need to surround herself with God\u2019s creation, with His beauty; drink it in and let it fill her up. And then she could look heavenward and just feel a prayer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The narrative itself is choppy, with sentences and paragraphs written in fits and starts, which perfectly mirrors Tess\u2019s personality and her coping mechanisms (particularly her \u201cpersonality disorder\u201d). In fact, a good portion of Tess\u2019s internal dialog and her observations are written as wry asides to herself and she is inviting you, Random Reader, to chuckle along with her.<\/p>\n

And I did. Even while I had tears running down my cheeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waiting for Spring by RJ Keller It\u2019s been a long time since I threw common sense to the wind and stayed up to finish a book knowing how much I had to do the next day, but not resenting it the next day because it was totally worth it. This book has no spiffy genre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[521,532,540,530,593],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-reading","category-romance","category-self-publishing","category-womens-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17246,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/17246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moriahjovan.com\/talesofdunham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}