He's Just Not That Into You

Last night I watched the movie He’s Just Not That Into You. I had read the book a few years ago and to note, it’s found in the “self-help” section of the bookstore. The book also inspired an episode of Sex and the City. Being a girl, who has had more than several crushes, a few dates, and 2 boyfriends in her life, I loved the book and its’ brutal honesty. The entire book essentially is why we have brothers or close guy friends – so we can turn to said brother and close guy friend and pepper them with questions about Possible Future Husband #85948 and what PFH’s behavior and words mean. Because as us girls are well aware, we always say that PFH is definitely interested in our friend. Possibly because we all want to be in that situation. Where the guy likes you and wants to be with just you.

The movie is one big experiment of 6 degrees of separation. All the characters are intertwined somehow in one another’s lives. And each character is exploring what the behavior of the opposite sex is doing either in the relationship or out of it. Despite its’ famous actors, the movie is depressing. I suppose it’s depressing because it’s a bit more realistic than the romantic comedies we’re all used to watching. This movie features cheating husbands (with the wife desperately trying to save the marriage), guys who won’t marry even after being with the same woman for 7 years (so the gal breaks it off and is ridiculed by everyone), a seductress (who won’t stay away from the married man), a guy trying to be with a girl who only sees him when she needs it emotionally (so the guy throws himself at her as a final straw), etc. At the route of all these relationships presented is the idea that we are all the rule, not the exception. So the hope us girls feel when we hear that somehow it worked out with so-and-so does not mean it will actually happen to us. Similarly any grim urban legend will not happen to us. Thank goodness, as those creepy stories are really icky.

Out of the whole movie, my favorite characters are Gigi and Alex. Gigi is the hopeless romantic, just trying to meet Mr. Right. Alex comes along as the good guy, who explains why guys say they’ll call when they don’t, etc. As the movie strums along, Gigi falls for Alex and although he denies it, Alex falls for her. They are the pair that make the movie. And make single girls want that. Maybe guys do too, I can’t really speak for them. I only know a girl’s heart inside out.

The movie ends with the relationships either ending or at least resolving in some fashion, sometimes a happy one and sometimes not. If I must admit? I cried, ok?! And it also ends with this quote:

“Girls are taught a lot of stuff growing up. If a guy punches you he likes you. Never try to trim your own bangs and someday you will meet a wonderful guy and get your very own happy ending. Every movie we see, Every story we're told implores us to wait for it, the third act twist, the unexpected declaration of love, the exception to the rule. But sometimes we're so focused on finding our happy ending we don't learn how to read the signs. How to tell from the ones who want us and the ones who don't, the ones who will stay and the ones who will leave. And maybe a happy ending doesn't include a guy, maybe... it's you, on your own, picking up the pieces and starting over, freeing yourself up for something better in the future. Maybe the happy ending is... just... moving on. Or maybe the happy ending is this, knowing after all the unreturned phone calls, broken-hearts, through the blunders and misread signals, through all the pain and embarrassment you never gave up hope.”

Reminds me of Jeremiah 29:11 – “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

That certainly means hope in love for all of us. So until then Mr. Darcy…

The Forgotten Garden

I’ve had just about the worst time finding a good book to read. I’ve searched high and low on Barnes & Nobles’ website (I even added it as an app on my iPhone to peruse while bored somewhere) and wandered the fiction and nonfiction shelves of my library. By doing so I have noticed two things: 1) I have really read a lot of books that are already out there and 2) nothing is really catching my eye.

Sure, I suppose I could think that I could sit down and write a book that I would want to read, but that topic’s been covered and believe me, I have no interest, aside from the interest in royalties that my (clearly) bestseller would bring in.

However, I am currently reading a book that both intrigues me enough not to want to read the end first to see if it’s worthy of actually working through the entire thing and one that I simply cannot put down. The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton, tells the story of a woman’s quest to find out who she is since being abandoned at the tender age of 3 where she is found on the docks in Australia, having arrived fresh off a ship from England. The story of what happened is told through several characters, moving from various time periods. Morton brings the reader back and forth between present day (2005), the 1970s, the 1930s, and the early 20th-century. Images of poor England, terrorized by Jack the Ripper and young children being forced into the workhouse dominate the story, as well as a mystery of long-lost family members and family betrayals among an aristocratic family. It is even difficult to name a main character, as there are a few who specifically stick out.

Morton clearly did her research writing this book, much like her first novel, which I also swallowed whole. The Forgotten Garden just published, so I shall eagerly await her next novel. It’s quite obvious that Morton shares the same love that I do – ENGLAND!