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Belong to Me
by Marisa de los Santos
Audio book narrated by Julia Gibson
This is a sequel to de los Santos’s first novel - Love Walked In - continuing the story of Cornelia and Teo. However, if you have not read the first book (and I haven’t), you can still enjoy Belong to Me.
Set in a trendy Philadelphia suburb, the novel focuses on three women whose paths cross and the unlikely friendships they form. Cornelia is a petite city girl who has left New York for the suburban life when her husband, hunky doctor Teo Sandoval, gets a new job. Piper Truitt is the Queen Bee of the neighborhood, perfectly dressed and coifed, the self-proclaimed arbiter of taste and appropriate behavior among her set, the perfect mother with perfect children and a perfect home. Lake Tremain, like Cornelia, is a newcomer, but she is a single mother working as a waitress and trying her best to provide an enriched education for her genius son, Dev.
De los Santos alternates point of view among three characters, and does a reasonably good job of this. I did think that some of the plot elements were rather like a soap opera, and the competing story lines resulted in some plot elements not getting sufficient exposition. I would really have liked to read Piper’s story in more depth – that would be an interesting novel all on its own. I did enjoy the writing; occasional phrases really caught my attention (“a confetti of noise” for example). I was engaged and interested from the beginning, though I did think the ending was a bit rushed. I do plan to read her first novel, and would read other works by her.
Julia Gibson does a credible job on the audio performance. She was able to sufficiently differentiate the characters, tricky when you have so many conversations between two or more women. I thought her pacing was good as well.
This is a sequel to de los Santos’s first novel - Love Walked In - continuing the story of Cornelia and Teo. However, if you have not read the first book (and I haven’t), you can still enjoy Belong to Me.
Set in a trendy Philadelphia suburb, the novel focuses on three women whose paths cross and the unlikely friendships they form. Cornelia is a petite city girl who has left New York for the suburban life when her husband, hunky doctor Teo Sandoval, gets a new job. Piper Truitt is the Queen Bee of the neighborhood, perfectly dressed and coifed, the self-proclaimed arbiter of taste and appropriate behavior among her set, the perfect mother with perfect children and a perfect home. Lake Tremain, like Cornelia, is a newcomer, but she is a single mother working as a waitress and trying her best to provide an enriched education for her genius son, Dev.
De los Santos alternates point of view among three characters, and does a reasonably good job of this. I did think that some of the plot elements were rather like a soap opera, and the competing story lines resulted in some plot elements not getting sufficient exposition. I would really have liked to read Piper’s story in more depth – that would be an interesting novel all on its own. I did enjoy the writing; occasional phrases really caught my attention (“a confetti of noise” for example). I was engaged and interested from the beginning, though I did think the ending was a bit rushed. I do plan to read her first novel, and would read other works by her.
Julia Gibson does a credible job on the audio performance. She was able to sufficiently differentiate the characters, tricky when you have so many conversations between two or more women. I thought her pacing was good as well.