If We Could Go Back

I found Cara Dee's books recently, and the first three that I read quickly became three of my favourite books this year so far. Right now I'm just obsessed with her writing. If I were lucky enough to only have a tiny percentage of her talent, I'd grab it. Her words paint the characters so vividly -- all funny, charming, or hurting -- it feels like watching a movie complete with a score. I believe the scenes and the moods. She made me fall in love with her characters.

So we meet Bennett and Kieran in this book.

Bennett feels like his life is stuck: He needs friends and that promotion at work. His wife Allison is away studying in a different city, leaving him with their two kids, and his marriage is running on an almost-empty tank.

Kieran, who is married to and has one kid with Maggie, isn't really happy either for a different reason: He's had to pretend he's straight for almost his entire life so he won't lose his huge family back home.

The two meet on their commute to work in the city and become friends -- who are amazingly oblivious to how flirty their conversations get. So you know they are going to hook up eventually. Feeling guilty and confused and kind of hopeless, they agree that it can only happen that one time and they have to go back to their families but will remain friends. As if that's going to cut it now.

Some time passes, and they finally admit that they do want each other. So their brilliant solution is, they are going to cheat on their wives. The affair works for a while -- they fall in love -- until it doesn't. Bennett realizes his marriage is never going to work out anyway, so he tells Allison that he's been having an affair, and the two get a divorce. While sorting his new life out, he also realizes that things aren't going to work out for him and Kieran either. He can no longer take the hiding and go on with the affair. So they, too, break up.

But I told you I've sworn off sad-ending books at this moment. So the spoiler is, after a series of events, they go and find each other again in the end. Because I won't be reading this book if they don't.

I love that the characters are in their late 20s / over 30, torn between difficult choices made more so by where they are at in their lives, and flawed. I love the humour and banter, and that the story is spanning over five years, taking its time to evolve or break our hearts. While cheating is still a thumbs down, I'm also a proponent of everyone-is-better-off-not-staying-in-a-loveless-relationship. But often we stay -- and this is beyond just a romantic relationship -- maybe we are just too coward, lazy, lost or stupid to be happy.

This is a story about second chances and hoping we'd be lucky enough to be able to do some good things in life despite our imperfections. It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster read, and when it ended, it was sad to part with the characters. I love this book.

Image: caradeewrites.com