From across the coffee shop
Lorelei catches a stanza
cranium over Converse
of heart-stopping description
of a boy
with a book
in his back pocket.
And that might have been her last line.
If he didn't
leave it behind
with a poem
tucked between the pages
A poem about a candy-striper
with bright hair
and an angel's voice
who reads to hospital patients
like Lorelei does.
Professional Reviews
4.0 out of 5 starsInnovative and Charming!
"In Love At First Book" Sarah Tregay takes the reader on a poetic journey into the heart of Lorelai, a young girl who has lost her mother to cancer and whose broken-hearted father, a surgeon has submerged himself in work. Like all teens she grapples with "every step, every grade, everything" in her life until one day at the local coffee shop she's swept away by a poem she finds between the pages of a book. She immediately makes a connection between herself and the candy -stripper in the poem who reads to patients asleep after an operation, and is overjoyed to think that the boy who wrote it is thinking about her.
In blank verse Sarah Tregay skilfully builds a love story as Lorelai is swept into a romance hoping she is the girl of the unnamed boy's dreams, only to face heartbreak then joy at her discovery. The stanzas are packed with emotional intensity as the young bookworm longs for her own love story to fill the void of her lonely, busy life and searches for the author of the poem only to discover that his heart might belong to another. As the short poetic story flows towards a satisying climax you have to smile at the warmth and humor that's conveyed in the exchange between father and daughter at the end.
I liked the wonderful innovation and charm of "In Love At First Book" and recommend it highly.
My memory of Elias is intimate but brief; I asked him, "what happened, where are you taking me, who are you? Tell me!"
In a calm voice; "Sara hush, you died.
