I chose this book to read because Danielle Steel is enormously popular with some folks and I chose this title in particular because I'd been told by someone I can't remember now that this was one of her better books.
In this book, a very close-knit and happy family is devastated by loss when their 5-year-old daughter dies of illness. The marriage is strained; the lost child's brother starts taking his suppers at a local diner because his mother never cooks any more.
At the diner, he meets a young waitress.
Her story is that she went to prom, and her date got drunk, and somebody else took her home - and he knocked her up.
Her dad goes ballistic and insists that she go to a convent-run home for unwed mothers. She can't stand it, and she decides to take a bus anywhere, as long as it's somewhat far from home.
The first stop the bus makes on her journey is a truck stop where a sign in the window advertises that the restaurant is looking for a waitress. She applies and is hired.
The two young people fall in love and what is interesting about the female character is how very level-headed and restrained she is. And, while she is not going to school, she keeps up her studies so that she can graduate on time. I am very impressed; I wouldn't begin to know what to do to keep up with my studies in a similar situation. I'd probably just read nineteenth-century novels and discuss Anna Karenina with bartenders. I mean, wouldn't you?
In this book, a very close-knit and happy family is devastated by loss when their 5-year-old daughter dies of illness. The marriage is strained; the lost child's brother starts taking his suppers at a local diner because his mother never cooks any more.
At the diner, he meets a young waitress.
Her story is that she went to prom, and her date got drunk, and somebody else took her home - and he knocked her up.
Her dad goes ballistic and insists that she go to a convent-run home for unwed mothers. She can't stand it, and she decides to take a bus anywhere, as long as it's somewhat far from home.
The first stop the bus makes on her journey is a truck stop where a sign in the window advertises that the restaurant is looking for a waitress. She applies and is hired.
The two young people fall in love and what is interesting about the female character is how very level-headed and restrained she is. And, while she is not going to school, she keeps up her studies so that she can graduate on time. I am very impressed; I wouldn't begin to know what to do to keep up with my studies in a similar situation. I'd probably just read nineteenth-century novels and discuss Anna Karenina with bartenders. I mean, wouldn't you?
