"Some things are better kept secret. And some things are not: life's most difficult task is to know which is which."
Things To Do When It's Raining is a novel full of all the deep feelings. Prepare yourself for a novel full of tragedy and heartbreaking beauty. Marissa Stapley takes you into the reality of near misses, misunderstandings, and the weight of secrets.
Mae Summers is content with her life. She has an incredible fiancé, a secure job at the growing company he owns, and is well on her way to making her dreams come true. It's a bit of a blow when she wakes up one morning to realize it was all built on lies.
After Peter disappears revealing the scam his company, and his life were, Mae is forced to return home. Life in Alexandria Bay, the sleepy tourist town she grew up in, is far different from life in New York City. While a change of pace might be good for Mae, she comes home to ghosts of her past.
Her grandfather isn't living at home, her grandmother is acting strangely, and Gabe, her childhood love, has returned. As Mae sorts through her emotions and tries to make sense of her new life, the answers to these questions may demand more forgiveness than she can manage.
"She starts to run, forgetting the fear of the ice and focusing instead on her fear of the truth."
I really liked how this novel was set up. In between each chapter, there's an item from the list Mae's mother, Virginia, posted on the wall of their family Inn, appropriately titled: Things To Do When It's Raining. One of the more subtle tragic twists is this list, the focus on rain, and Mae's parents. When you put that one together, it just hurts your heart!
We also get multiple perspectives, not just Mae. Gabe, Lilly and George, all have their own secrets and struggles to work through. Changing the narration to give a more personal look at each storyline made the novel feel more realistic. Mae couldn't possibly uncover these secrets on her own, and the novel would have felt more murder mystery if she had. Instead, we get a very rich and complex set of tangled lives. Which is generally how secrets end up. Tangled and woven into our lives in ways we never really expect, or sometimes even understand.
"She had told him she loved him then, and she had cried, and he had known that there were too many things he was never going to be able to say to her."
The one storyline I struggled with the most was Lilly. I didn't really understand her motives for doing some of the things she did. I mean, logically I understand the information presented. But, there were a couple of things that felt so cruel, it was hard to feel like she justified doing them.
Beyond Lilly's secrets and actions though, the core of the novel really is about how we perceive ourselves and how we let others determine that perception. Of all of the narrations, Gabe's is the most heartbreaking. The secrets he keeps are more from the burdens others placed on him as a child. For Gabe, while he seeks the forgiveness of others, he really needs to forgive himself. That's the hardest thing, and leads to such heartbreak for him. There are many times you want to reach through the book and hug him. And smack the adults around him.
"He loved her because he understood what it meant to be wounded, and to inflict wounds in return."
Stapley takes us into some deep emotions, the type that take a minute to sort out. I'm still undecided on how I feel about Lilly for example. But she also gives us redemption and hope. We get a novel that shows us life at it's messiest. At how good intentions can quickly turn poisonous, and how difficult it can be to untangle ourselves from the lies we tell ourselves and the lies others tell us.
We get to see people at their best and also at their worst. It makes it difficult to love or hate them in a black and white spectrum, and I really enjoy that in a cast of characters. You'll want to react but will also hold yourself back, and possible change your mind. There are times you want to strangle them or scream at them, but then you'll be exposed to their own flawed humanity and your heart will break for them. It is an accomplishment to take you through the spectrum of reactions to multiple characters.
"People change their minds about things. It just happens. You can't stay sure about everything your whole life."
People change. They make mistakes. They live in regret. Forgiveness is a journey that we all go through at some stage and to some degree. Whether we seek it from others, or search from it within ourselves. Stapley does a beautiful job writing a story full of mistakes, misconceptions, secrets, lies, and at the heart of it all is forgiveness and the power of love.
Things To Do When It's Raining is a beautifully complex novel that would be perfect for a book club, or book discussion. There's so many facets to explore. I think the conversation would be fascinating!
Thank you BookSparks for sending me a copy to read and review for #WRC2018!!!
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