Apart At The Seams Book Tour

I remember my first chick lit novel: it was the sequel to Bridget Jones’ Diary. What I remember most isn’t (apparently) the title, but the awkward conversation I had with a friend of mine when I nearly flung it out the third-story window of a terrace house after chapter two, calling Bridget a “dappy bint”.

Turns out my friend identified heavily with Bridget. I steered clear of chick lit for a long time after that.

Then Mel (the one who comments here!) wrote a whole series of chick-lit books, the latest of which is Apart At The Seams (available by no small coincidence as the Daily Deal on Amazon today – if you’re reading this and it’s still the 5th). And it was much better! And it had bloggers in it. I’ve not only read (most of) them, but joined up a book club tour to give you a closer look.

Close as in spoilers guys. Be warned.

Apart At The Seams by Melissa Ford (Cover)Apart At The Seams is the sequel to Life from Scratch and Measure of Love – but you don’t have to have read either to read this one.

It “tells the same tale as Measure of Love from Arianna Quinn’s point-of-view.  From her budding friendship with Noah Reiser, writer for the popular comedy news show, the Nightly, to her relationship with Ethan Katz, her best friend’s brother, Arianna navigates the world of single motherhood while trying to listen to her heart, and discovers that the truth is as slippery as the satin she embroiders at work, especially in the lies we tell ourselves.”

 

I’m going to play it straight and answer my three questions from the others:

As a reader I felt distanced and came away with the impression that I only knew what Arianna wanted me to know. I wasn’t convinced that she knew herself, or possibly even trusted herself all that much. I questioned her motivation and felt she “settled,” which made me sad. I feel no one should settle. Do you feel she was settling?

I don’t think she knew what she was doing a lot of the time. But if she ever did, it was towards the end when she finally had something force her to stop and think. One person might reflect you well, but that doesn’t mean they complete you. One project might look shiny and pretty, but that doesn’t mean you should buy it as-is and hang it up in your hallway.

I can understand Arianna’s decision, but a lot remains to be seen in practice. If there’s a fourth book coming, hopefully it will see Arianna breathing more slowly and gaining a bit more clarity on, you know, everything.

Arianna has a difficult time asking for help, assuming that she has to be available for everyone else’s needs in all aspects of her life. Once she realizes that she needs to focus on herself, does she go too far in the other direction of neglecting important relationships?

Yes. But that’s ok.

The whole book happens over a pretty short time period, and she goes through a completely foreseeable period of relationship “neglect” every year at the same time, due to her work. So yes, she disappeared momentarily. She kind of fell off the face of the earth for a number of weeks and it wasn’t necessarily at the best time for those around her, even though they had some forewarning. Then she took a deep breath and sought balance. I didn’t hold it too hard against her.

Knowing that Arianna never wants to get married, why do you think Ethan kept pushing the idea rather than compromising?

I felt he did try to compromise, many times in many ways. The fact that his suggestions didn’t work shows he didn’t really understand what problem he was trying to solve – and I didn’t really blame him for that, since Arianna didn’t know, either.

I’m not even sure either of them really figured this one out in the end. It seemed more as if they just made a promise to try and figure it out together. I guess that seemed like enough to me.

To continue to the next leg of this book tour, please visit the main list as put together by the indefatigable Lori at LavenderLuz.com

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