Story for the Week
There are lots of sayings about girls and their dads. “Daddy’s little girl” usually has him wrapped around her little finger. I’m not sure that was the case with my dad when I was growing up, but I certainly know it’s the case with my daughter and my husband. Since she was small, trips to any store with her father resulted in a lot of “loot.” As she has grown into a confident teenager, she still benefits from the fact that her dad is a pushover (her word, which he laughs at because he knows it’s true). He’s strict with her, but he will readily admit that he has a hard time saying “no” when she really wants something.
I also think about the traits that remind me of my own dad. He doled out the punishments when we were kids, but he’s generally pretty mild-mannered, laid back, more on the quiet and introspective side. He’s really good at math, definitely not really good at spelling. He’s fun to play Uno with because he’s red/green color blind, and when you get him to smile at a joke, you know it was really funny. He loves his kids and their spouses and his grandkids, and he’s a little bit of a pushover now too—as is evidenced by the number of stuffed animals in my daughter’s bedroom that came from the claw machine at Denny’s. And he really loves my mom. 💘
I got a lot of traits from my dad. I tend to be on the quiet and introspective side. My dad and I both tend to keep our emotions pretty well in check, but I will admit that I’m a lot more sensitive since my brother and his wife had kids and I had a kid of my own. But because opposites attract, I also inherited a lot of traits from my mom. I am a really good speller, and I married someone who’s really good at math. 😊 I will laugh out loud at something I find just a little bit funny. And I married someone who really loves me. 💘
My husband and I definitely define the idea of opposites attract as well. Where I am a lot like my dad, my husband is actually a lot more like my mom. He is the extrovert to my introvert (mom), he has a little bit of a temper (mom), and he likes to tell the occasional off-color joke (definitely mom, although she will swear she doesn’t know how she got that reputation).
Our daughter is a nice blend of the two of us. She likes to read and she’s a great speller like I am, and she’s also really good at math like her father and grandfather. She keeps her emotions in check most of the time, and she is definitely an extrovert. And I’ve already talked about the wit she inherited from her dad in a previous post. She is like me in many ways, but she is definitely her father’s daughter.
In honor of Father’s Day and finding someone to love whose opposites balance us out, I hope you enjoy this book about two people who view the world very differently but, in an odd way, very much the same.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn
301 pages
Publisher: Kensington Publisher’s
Publication Date: December 31, 2019
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Kensington Publisher’s in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher’s Description
Meg Mackworth’s hand-lettering skill has made her famous as the Planner of Park Slope, designing custom journals for New York City’s elite. She has another skill too: reading signs that other people miss. Knowing the upcoming marriage of Reid Sutherland and his gorgeous fiancée was doomed to fail is one thing, but weaving a secret word of warning into their wedding program is another. Meg may have thought no one would spot it, but she hadn’t counted on sharp-eyed, pattern-obsessed Reid.
A year later, Reid has tracked Meg down to find out how she knew that his meticulously planned future was about to implode. But with a looming deadline and a bad case of creative block, Meg doesn’t have time for Reid’s questions—unless he can help her find her missing inspiration. As they gradually open up to each other, both try to ignore the deepening connection between them. But the signs are there—irresistible, indisputable, urging Meg to heed the messages Reid is sending her, before it’s too late.
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I requested Kate Clayborn’s Love Lettering from NetGalley a while back and I was disappointed when I realized what I requested was only an excerpt. I was hooked with the first line: “On Sunday I work in sans serif.” And by the end of the first chapter, I wanted to keep going. I will admit that I might have been biased in part because I’m kind of a print geek. I was a journalism major, worked with a magazine, love all facets of printing (especially the smell of a press room), so even though Meg does hand-lettering as opposed to machine printing, her artist brain really appealed to me. She experiences the world in fonts, and I kinda love that.
Reid, on the other hand, sees the world in numbers, and although you wouldn’t think that Reid’s factual world and Meg’s whimsical world would mesh, they seem to come together so perfectly.
This book is a romance, and it follows the standard pattern of a romance novel. What’s important to make something like this stand out is the execution—the character development, the back stories, the interaction between the leads—and I really didn’t think there was anything not to like about this. This story made me smile—a lot.
I would recommend this to my friends. I would buy this for my friends. And I would read it again and again. Swoonsh!
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