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Jojo Moyes' Still Me, the third in her series, follows Louisa Clark across the pond, as she takes a job as a personal assistant after the death of paraplegic Will Traynor and after finding love again with the Sam the paramedic. Moyes gets Lou in and out of trouble, building suspense through misunderstandings and jumping to conclusions.
I also enjoyed Elizabeth Berg's The Story of Arthur Truluv. Since every book about an old person these days is compared to A Man Called Ove, I'd have to say this is the book you might have gotten if Ove hadn't been such a curmudgeon from the start. Arthur (real last name Moses) hasn't adjusted to life with Nola, so he visits here grave every day, carrying on conversation with her and her "neighbors" in nearby graves. He meets Maddy, a high school outcast who escapes the cafeteria to eat lunch in the cemetery, and develops an unusual connection. He also expands his circle to include nosy neighbor Lucille, recognizing her loneliness. The story is more life-affirming than life-changing, but who doesn't need that kind of read now and then.
I've already written about Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, another character-driven story that takes readers along with the title character (who is more like Ove than Arthur). She's awkward and hard to like; fortunately, her co-worker Raymond looks past her oddities and includes her as he rescues a stranger and expands his--and Eleanor's--circle of family and friends. The rollercoaster ride through Eleanor's lows can be painful for readers. Thank goodness for the Raymonds of the world.
Other novels appearing on the bestseller list this year didn't quite live up to their potential. Rebecca Serle's The Dinner List was built on such a lovely premise. One of my favorite parts of the Sunday New York Times "Book Review" section is "By the Book," in which current authors answer a number of standard questions--What's on your nightstand right now? What kind of reader were you as a child? The question What authors, dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party? always sparks some interesting groupings with the potential for interesting conversation across the table. Sabrina, the novel's protagonist, lives out this fantasy on the evening of her thirtieth birthday. Her guests include her best friend, her estranged father, her long-time love Tobias, her favorite college professor, and Audrey Hepburn. It turns out Hepburn is not the only dinner guest no longer living.
Serve takes readers back and forth between the dinner party and flashbacks involving the characters in her life (Hepburn only on film). The book had a made-for-movie feel about it, but never quite lived up to my expectations. If I'd read it at another time, I might have felt differently, I admit.
If I only read light fare, I'd probably always be hungry for m ore. Reading over my year's list, I realize that some books barely touch me, while others never leave me. Sometimes I'm captivated by the language of a book; at other times, though, I fall in love with a character or a place. Either way, I'll keep reading.
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