I bought The Diary by accident to be honest. I’m not sure how it ended up on my booklist at Book of the Month Club, but I must have been looking at it and clicked “add” somewhere along the way because sure enough it came in the mail a few months ago. I knew I’d need a couple books for my trip to Chicago so I threw this one in my bag for the trip home. I had read the summary a couple times, but it didn’t really get my attention so it kept being placed further down in the stack. I’ll even admit that I only put it in my suitcase knowing when it was the only book in my suitcase, I’d have to read it.
So as soon as I took my seat on the plane, I pulled out The Diary and started reading – bound and determined to successfully finish it so it could be moved to the “finished” stack. Imagine how surprised I was when by the third chapter I was really into it and loving every page – daring the man next to me to speak and distract me from my book (luckily he was reading too) or the stewardess to ask if I wanted a drink or snack.
The Diary is the story of two sisters who recently lost their father and their mother is now on the verge of death herself. They are going through and cleaning out the family home when they discover their mother’s diary from when she was in her early twenties. It is then that they discover that their mother once had a life (imagine that!), but not just any life – a pretty dramatic life. She professes to have only truly one love and the man is not her father. They have no doubts that her mother and father loved each other, but in her 20’s her mother loved another man – and this is devastating news to the girls. How did their mother make the decision to “settle” for the father? They don’t know as the diary ends with all those decisions left unsaid.
Eileen Goudge does such a good job pulling you into this book, that you too are flipping each page hoping to find the answers to all the questions left unsaid in the diary that the sisters are searching for themselves. Will they find a follow up diary? Will Mom wake up from her stroke and finish the story for them? As I flipped each page, I was anxious for those answers, but never saw them coming from the source that Eileen provided. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the messenger and the message.
The Diary may be the ultimate love story – a reminder of what “genuine love” is, how hard it is to make decisions between your heart and your mind, and that our parents are real people with real emotions now matter how we’ve looked at them as we grow up as infallible.
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This story hits home for me. I’ve never heard of this author, I think I’m going to look up this book on Barnes&Noble right now to get a price check.