Thoughts 
Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy, Harper Perennial 2011, 402 pages
MOTIVATION for READING: Oh boy. I can blame all of this on my good friend Nancy the Bookfool. She’s the one who first told me about SVB and I think she may have even sent my the story collection which I fell hard in love with (for?) and gave a whopping big 5 stars to. AND THEN?! Why she tells me that our SVB will be in Boston in September! OH JOY! So I suggested that she should just come and go WITH me to see Mr. Van Booy at the Boston Public Library and lo-and-behold, she bit. She will be my guest that week as I drop her off in the center of old towns to take millions of pictures of buildings and flowers (and dogs since I don’t have any cats), make her run errands with me, be a taste tester for my wonderful husband’s creative cooking, and who knows what else.
But WAIT! There’s MORE!
Since all the stuff is being planned to go SEE the author, I suggested to my book club that we READ the book for our September choice (it was my month to pick and since I had to read it anyway…) I was hoping to invite any/all of my sister-clubbers to attend with us but alas, it is first week of school so I don’t think anyone has the energy to blip in something like this that week. Of course, they are still invited to meet us there. Nancy and I have to take a little detour to Boston College that morning and hurry in for lunch plans.
AND? Yep, more. My parents will be visiting during the week of my book club meeting so I will make Mom read the book and bring her along! My mother is a hit at these things. Should be a quite fun. Right, Mom? :)
Which brings me to the part about this book. In one word, EVOCATIVE.
evocative |iˈväkətiv|adjective – bringing strong images, memories, or feelings to mind : powerfully evocative lyrics| the building’s cramped interiors are highly evocative of past centuries.
Quickly, it is about a girl who goes to Athens because Athens is a city with a personality that calls to lost souls. She befriends one man who falls for her and yet she falls for another man and in the meantime, these two gentlemen become friends and don’t realize their connection and then stuff happens and time goes on and there is MUCH traveling which was one of my favorite parts even though the style of writing was different. Overall? It is short by epic. It is emotional, beautiful, philosophical, quiet and powerful. Then POW! We are back at the beginning and the urge to start reading it again right away is huge.
I’m now going to pull Nancy’s words off her post first mentioning this novel:
It seems to be a love triangle, at first, and it begins a little slowly. Apart from the beauty of his writing, you may even be tempted to think it’s not going to be anything special. And, then Simon yanks the rug out from you and turns the story on its head. Suddenly, what you thought was a love triangle becomes a story of grief and hope. It’s almost a tapestry — about love and death and friendship, the fleeting nature of life and how much every single moment counts. Everything Beautiful Began After is awe-inspiring, uplifting, authentic, hopeful, beautiful. It’s everything I hoped Simon’s first novel would be. Prepare to have your heart broken and then put back together with sparkles and rainbows. Everything Beautiful Began After is a book you simply must read.
Also, I must bring you to Literate Housewife’s words AND photos her experience reading this book. Any blogger that brings up John Cusack in a review is tops with me. So click on the link and read what she has to say. My favorite? When she says the important theme is “The hope of love returning.” Yes.
Sigh…
and finally, I must say again that I am VERY excited to meet Simon Van Booy. 
For my review of SVB’s Love Begins in Winter, click here.
It is likely that I will not post between now and then. I’ll be back, don’t worry. Happy Back to School! Happy September! Happy Labor Day! Happy Happy Happy.
HIdeinWhitetoSkipLine
I really enjoyed this book!
I hope you and Nancy have lots of fun spending time together, doing bookish things, and of course meeting Simon van Booy.
Holy cow, your enthusiasm for this book is contagious! I wish I could read it right now!
I can’t wait to read this book! I placed a library hold after reading all the glowing reviews.
Everyone has been raving about this, so I got it from the library and tried to read it, but the prose was a little too poetic for me – I couldn’t tell what the heck the author was talking about half the time, so I gave up on it!
Oh, I get ya. I have some reader friends who would likely hate this. And I bet I get some clubbers say it was only “ok”,
I’m currently reading this book! I just gotta read it after reading so many glowing reviews on it.
I knew you’d love it!! Thanks for the shout-out. Boston College? Cool! I was going to ask you about that errand but I cannot seem to sit still long enough to get computery things done.
Do you know, I still haven’t actually officially reviewed Everything Beautiful Began After? It’s so brilliant that I’m completely intimidated. If I’d have been thinking, I would have just made that paragraph my “official” review, but I was so immersed that I didn’t stop to mark quotes so I tried to immediately reread for the sake of quotations alone (bad idea) and then I got sucked into the black hole known as The Evil Reading Slump. But, I will read it over and over and over, again, so someday there will be quotes.
Literate Housewife’s review is great. And, yeah . . . evocative. Excellent word choice.
Wasn’t this one just gorgeous! I loved the typewriter letters and the language, really just everything.
I need to read this right away!
OK, I am so jealous! How cool that the two of you get to hang out!
Ooh, you get to meet Simon van Booy? *is jealous*
Glad you liked this
So jealous taht you’re meeting Van Booy AND Nancy!!! Have a blast!!! And like you, I can blame all Van Booy reading on Nancy
Oh my goodness, Care, but you’ve got a lot of fun to look forward to, don’t you? Hope you and Nancy have oodles upon oodles of fun!!! (There’s no doubt you will, but I had to say it anyway.)
Wow. I do love The Literate Housewife’s picture of John Cusack! This sounds like something I could really love; guess I’ll have to read it.