Story for the Week
Letter writing seems to be a lost art. In this age of computers and cell phones, it’s easy to send an e-mail or a text or a message over social media. It’s been years since I have written or received an actual hand-written letter, and I think I kind of miss it a little. (The irony is not lost on me that this post was drafted on a computer and published online. 😉)
When I was a senior in high school, I was the editor of the school newspaper, The Maroon. One of the things our advisor Miss Bertinetti (Miss B for short) focused on was seeing what other schools published, so at the beginning of the school year, each staff member chose three schools to send our newspaper to, requesting that they send theirs in return. That year, our first issue included photos of all the new editors.
One afternoon when I arrived in class, I went to the office in the back of the room to check my mail slot. Miss B. called out to me from the front of class, “I’ll go to prom with him if you don’t want to.” As it turned out, one of the editors who responded to my request added a note asking if I had a date for the prom. Ha ha, funny funny…until we met in person during a journalism event at a local college.
Yes, we started dating. Yes, we went to prom. No, that is not the point of this story.
Personal computers and cell phones did not exist back then. Long-distance calls were outrageously expensive. Bob and I lived about 40 minutes apart, and neither of us owned our own car. So when we couldn’t be together, we wrote letters. Pages and pages and pages of letters. (Think Ross and Rachel, 18 pages, front and back letters. 😂)
We would spend all week writing what we were doing, what was going on, and at the end of each week, we dropped a very thick envelope into the mail. We called as well and we went out every couple of weekends, but we couldn’t spend hours on the phone. The best way for us to share our day-to-day lives was letters.
About 10 months later, shortly after graduation, we went our separate ways. We were attending colleges in different states, and it felt like it would be too hard to do the long-distance thing (at least that’s what he said). My last letter to Bob told him about orientation weekend at college. His last letter to me warranted an angry phone call, but that is a story for another blog post. 🫢
There’s something to be said about the art of putting pen to paper, putting a stamp on an envelope, and dropping a letter into the mail. And I feel like letter writing allows for the conveyance of emotion that an e-mail doesn’t. You can’t see tone in an e-mail, but you can certainly see it in handwriting on a page.
Letter writing plays an integral part in the book reviewed below. It’s one you won’t want to skip.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for The Starfish Sisters by Barbara O’Neal
381 pages
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: September 1, 2023
This title was an Amazon First Reads selection.
Publisher’s Description
Phoebe and Suze used to be closer than sisters. Growing up in a quiet and wildly beautiful coastal town in Oregon, they shared everything. Until the secrets they couldn’t share threatened their bond and complicated their lives.
Now, decades later, Suze, a famous actress desperate for safe haven following a brutal attack, is back in town. Phoebe, a successful illustrator and fabric designer, has discovered keeping a secret means she can’t let anyone get close, aside from her beloved granddaughter, Jasmine. As Jasmine’s move to London looms, Phoebe doesn’t know how to face the return of her old friend and all that’s still unsaid between them. Can the two women who’ve never confronted their past do it now when the choice is between healing and survival?
Heartfelt and layered, The Starfish Sisters is a moving story about the complicated nature of female friendship, the joys and heartbreaks of life, and the resiliency and power that women possess.
************
Main Characters:
- Phoebe – an artist, created a New York Times bestselling picture book, raised in Portland but spent her summers and holidays with her grandmother in Blue Cove along the coast of Oregon, divorced her husband when she was pregnant with her daughter Stephanie
- Suze – an A-list actress attacked six months ago; moved to Blue Cove with her father, an abusive evangelical preacher, when she was 12 and became best friends with Phoebe; spent a lot of time with Phoebe’s grandmother
- Joel – grew up in Blue Cove and became friends with Suze because they were both considered weird and outcasts; also an artist who spent a lot of time learning from Phoebe’s grandmother
- Beryl – Phoebe’s grandmother, lived in Blue Cove and took Suze under her wing; taught Phoebe, Suze, and Joel all about art
- Ben – farm manager Phoebe hired to run the farm her grandmother inherited from her own father; Phoebe has a bit of a crush on him
- Jasmine – Phoebe’s granddaughter; spending time with Phoebe while her mother is in London looking for an apartment where they are planning to move
Trigger warnings: abuse, stalking
About six weeks ago, I attended an author panel at a local bookstore. We spent an hour or so listening to four authors discuss their writing process, their inspiration, their friendship, and of course, their most recent releases.
At the time, I had only read one of the four. I selected Barbara O’Neal’s The Starfish Sisters as my Amazon First Reads choice in August, and it was already on my to-be-read list. After I heard her speak about the book, I looked forward to it even more…and wow, I’m so glad I chose it.
This book spans the wonderful and traumatic and heartbreaking and forgiving journey of Phoebe and Suze. Best friends since the age of 12, the two now 50-something women have been somewhat at odds for the last couple of years since Beryl’s passing. They love like sisters, they have lost so much, and both are keeping secrets that they fear will destroy their friendship.
O’Neal’s ability to weave the past into the present took my breath away. She seamlessly captured on the page the way your mind can be triggered by some event in the present day and take you immediately to a time from decades ago. With chapters alternating between Phoebe and Suze, readers see both perspectives, so we can appreciate how each woman feels while knowing that if they would just have a conversation….
But sometimes life interrupts when you’re trying to say what needs to be said. The time isn’t right. The situation is already so chaotic and volatile that you don’t want to add fuel to the flame. So things that would help heal are left unsaid, and when they finally come to light, the hurt is even more intense.
You wouldn’t think that something so heartbreaking could be so healing, but O’Neal does an amazing job of capturing every thought and feeling. She gives both women their individual voices as wildly successful adults as well as scared and emotional teenagers. I loved how she used a shared journal, mailed back and forth between the two girls, to keep them connected when they were apart. I felt the angst and the emotion when I read their entries to each other, and when pages were torn out of the journal, I hurt with them over what was left unsaid.
What a beautiful story that I didn’t want to stop reading even while I feared that it wouldn’t end well. I am so grateful to have discovered Barbara O’Neal through this title. I will be looking for her previous books to add to my library.
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