Skip to main content

Book : Thinking of You (Jill Mansell)

A relaxing read about how to give yourself an early and premature empty nest syndrome. Easy read and sometimes caught off-guard with Jem's (the leaving-home gungho all-too-assured-of-the-future daughter) sudden 'rudeness' or perhaps 'disregard' for her single mother's feelings. But I guess that's just the way teenagers and young adults are...maybe it's a little too close to home and it made me a little uncomfortable thinking about it, considering I am in the same position as Ginny (the poor abandoned mother).

I do have a complaint about the fact there's very little of everything else, especially the 'one'. What's with so little of Finn, he's not even a supporting role? It's like he donated his sperm (sorry, a little spoiler alert) and he just sounds a little too gruff and nothing else. No sweet moments and no other details about him apart from his love life.

A little less about Jem would be nice, really, considering the fact that most people reading this book would be in Ginny's shoes and not Gem. It just gives us, moms, a little bit more heartache and an incoming heart attack. #lol

It's an easy, fun read...something you'd bring on board the airplane, to the immigration department when you're waiting for your passport renewal and if you're stuck in the train or bus. But it does, kind of, reflect quite realistically about what single moms (maybe even dads) who have grown-up children approaching college or university might have to face when their kids are ready to face the world on their own.

There's a fair amount of cheating and heartbreaks in friendship and I kind of like Gavin the ex-husband. Eccentric and totally a whack. Maybe sometimes, that's the kind of ex-husbands that makes the greatest ex-husbands. No talk of alimony, child support, hard feelings, jealousy, envy or resentment. Just knowing each other well enough to let each other be.

I don't get the title, though. Thinking of who, precisely?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Liberating Activity - Guess What Mine Is....

When asked what’s my one single favorite thing to do in the world, I would usually name a whole list of things that I love to do when my work is not screaming at me. Something that takes my mind COMPLETELY off of everyday tasks and relaxes me. Take a guess what it is…. If you say ‘ reading ’, yes, I love reading (especially soppy love stories with lots of sex scenes, please. Hee hee hee ….) and I also love mystery novels but it’s not the first on the list. If you say ‘ playing the piano ’; yes, I love playing the piano. Creating forms a huge part of my life and whenever I play the piano (as inept at it as I am), there’s this tiny little girl inside of me jumping up and down with glee, clapping her hands. It’s my childhood dream to be able to play the piano! And thumping on the keys gives me a sense of satisfaction when I hear the music. If you say ‘ writing ’; You’ve got to be kidding me! You mean I don’t write enough as it is? Case closed. If you say ‘ playing with my kids ’; Yea...

Maid Side-Kick

I was kind of a little sad when I read the news about this - there will be no live-in Indonesian maids in Malaysia anymore . There are pros and cons to having a live-in maid, as with everything else, but for us, we enjoyed more pros than cons. Back then, when my kids were little, we brought in a family of maids to help with...well, just about everything, and we were like two families merged into one. They ate what we ate, we sleep, they sleep, we shop, they shop, they joke, we laugh, we joke, they laugh...for me, the maid I hired was more like a sister and side-kick to me. For that few years, I was dependent on her to mind-read my schedule and when I need or don't need help. She picked things up quickly and we ended up having lots of moments whereby we were in sync. Today, two of them are on my Facebook and we were gleefully chatting over Facebook Messenger since they've just discovered the wonders of the Internet and Social Media. Since we were more like partners in crim...

Demanding a Balanced Lifestyle

We live in a world choked with demands….demand for more money, better lifestyle, more holidays, smarter kids, bigger house, posher cars….etc. People walk around with spiritually unimportant goals in their minds driven by the need to succeed and be better than others around them. Hong Kong. South Korea. Japan. Most Asian countries suffer from this ill-fate which have caused a horrific rise in the number of suicide rates in the said countries. Malaysia is no exception as well although we’re very slowly gaining ground on our neighbors. Just picking up my son from school can become a stressful affair. I’ve mentioned this to a few friends of mine over the phone and all of them cluck their tongue shake their head. It’s end of the year and the kids are getting their test results back by now. I overheard a couple of tai-tais (housewives) gripe about their kids’ results. Mom: I don’t know-lah. My kid did not do very well this term. The best also got 95 only. (NINETY FIVE ONLY???) ...