Hello readers! I hope y'all had a great Valentine's Day, filled with love, laughter, friends, and just all around fun. I know I did. My sweetheart surprised me by preordering the next, and final, book in one of my favorite series, but I'll tell you more about that book in my next post ;-)
A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of picking up a long time favorite of mine from the library. If you have never read Star-Crossed by Linda Collison, I would highly recommend that you make an effort to in the near future. Yes, it is a teen fiction work of literature, but it is a wonderful adventure. One might deduce from the title that all it will be is a love story, which in a round-about way it is, as the main character falls in love with life, but it is far more than that. It is full of lessons and adventure and discovering oneself.
This book follows a young girl named Patricia Kelley, who is an illegitimate daughter of a well to-do plantation owner in Barbados, raised in the heart of British society. However, her only contact with her father is through letters, one of which promises her the rightful ownership of his estate. As fate would have it, her father dies, leaving her without a legitimate claim to any funds, and so she sets off to claim her land. She stows away on a merchantman, and before long is discovered, as any good story will provide. Without giving too much of the story away, she finds herself forced to choose between the world of gentlefolk, of petticoats and slippers, and the world that she has come to love, the world of sailors and ships officers, of tar and sweat. By the end of the story, she discovers exactly who she is and who she wants to be.
There is one quote at the end of the book that I found very deep, with a poignant lesson contained therein. It is Patricia's realization of just how important each individual really is.
"I wondered how living beings could be at once so delicate, so easily destroyed, yet at the same time indomitable. I had said I could never be an ordinary woman but it occurred to me there were no ordinary women, or ordinary men. We're all extraordinary. And no matter what else it was, life was rich in possibilities."
At this point, Patricia has been through loss and heartache, happiness and sheer joy. She has been through battles, experienced first hand how merciless fever can be, and also seen the miracles that can be enjoyed through life. She understands the way life can be. Life is fleeting. No one is immortal, free from hurt. Yet, humanity as a whole has a will of iron; it refuses to be defeated, to be brought down. It may be worn down and exhausted at times, but it can never be obliterated.
Every human being on the face of this earth, past, present, and future, is extraordinary in their own way. They each have their own unique gifts to offer the world, whether they are scientific breakthroughs, a beautiful work of art, or even something as simple as a good word for someone in need. Nobody is insignificant, no matter where they come from. Nobody. It doesn't matter who you are or where you come from, life is as full as you make it. You just have to find the courage to find what makes it full, just as Patricia did.
Whoever says that books cannot offer relevant lessons for every day life, was wrong. Just look at what is taught through one simple quote from one page in a book.
I hope this sparked your interest in this amazing book, but more importantly, I hope you see what wonderful lessons can be learned from the pages of a novel, and you now know just how important every one truly is.
If you do decide to give this book a chance, let me know what you think of it!
Happy reading!
