Ah, my first re-read of 2011. This one has become a sick day go-to for me, for the days when I need light, quick fiction and I need it bad.

After goggling it occasionally on dates to Borders over several years (what? what did your courtship look like?), I finally found a cheap copy of Love Walked In at the Bibb County Friends of the Library book sale one year (an event I continue to miss now that I’m gone from Mercer). I was, and am, sort of cautious with contemporary fiction, especially stuff with a blurb on the back cover from Sarah Jessica Parker.

But it’s sweet and makes me cry a bit but not overmuch and the characters feel real and Clare, the eleven-year-old protagonist, loves all the books I loved as a child and love still (and also vie for pride of place on sick day binge reading): Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden. The other narrator, Cornelia, alludes to Shakespeare and throws in uncited references to the likes of Whitman. So while their story chugs sweetly along and I sip my tea, Clare and Cornelia let me bridge that gap between fluff and tough stuff, and, engulfed in my second cold of 2011, I’m very grateful.