The Myth of You & Me

I've decided that this book doesn't fit my definition of chick lit, and categorized it as contemporary fiction instead. It's not intersperced with funny narration, keeping a rather serious tone throughout, and, to me, this makes it fall outside the realm of chick lit. The plot and characters, however, would have fit the chick lit mold without constraint. This is a reminiscence by Cameron, about her years being best friends with Sonia, and how that friendship came to an end. The book opens with Cameron, working as a live-in assistant to an elderly historian, receiving a letter from Sonia, after many years of mutual silence. Mutual silence that resulted from a major event that put a definite end to their friendship. That much Cameron can show more tell Oliver, but no more.

Momentarily, when Cameron receives the letter, she thinks she's written it herself, as it appears to be in her hand-writing. Then she remembers how Sonia and she trained themselves to have matching hand-writing. In this letter, Sonia invites Cameron to her wedding. Cameron leaves the letter unanswered.

Some time later, Oliver passes away. Cameron has lived with him for three years and he has become her family, in many ways. She is saddened and shaken by the death.

Oliver has left her a task to accomplish after his passing. He requests, in a letter she finds, that she deliver a gift to Sonia, for her wedding.

Cameron reluctantly agrees. She has no plans for what comes next. And she feels compelled to follow Oliver's instructions.

The novel progresses between Cameron's present search for Sonia, as she attempts to deliver Oliver's present to her, and her memories of her friendship with Sonia.

She and and Sonia became friends their first year of high school, and right from the start, Cameron has been witness to Sonia's two biggest secrets: her inability to read numbers and her mother's abuse of her, both mental and physical.

And so it goes, back and forth, culminating in the events that put an end to the friendship in the past and in a reunion in the present.

Finally, when Cameron has found Sonia, they open Oliver's gift and find it is a letter to Cameron, in which Oliver reveals a life-changing event of his own to Cameron.

I suppose the book's main message goes to the consequences of deliberately leaving a portion of your past behind you, with the intention of never looking back.

This book is pretty well done. I did find it slow for the first half or so, often finding that my mind had wandered and that I needed to re-read a page because of it.

And like I said, I didn't consider this chick lit (and I wanted it to be chick lit) so I wasn't as fond of the serious tone as I am of the chick lit books that takes serious events and serious themes and include a lighter, funnier spin on them without making light of big topics.

In the end, I felt like this novel was trying to convey a Big Message that I may not have entirely gotten. For example, Sonia seems to thinks that Cameron is fundamentally someone who can leave people behind rather than stick around and cope with the obstacles, based on what happened between them. I am rather of the school of thought that one incident does not create a pattern. show less

As I was browsing an OBCZ in Westminster, Maryland, I happened upon this book. On the spine, instead of the title, are the words "For anyone who has ever lost or found a friend." That piqued my interest enough to pull it off the shelf, but the BookCrossing label inside was what spurred me to take it with me. It's not my usual type of book; it looked really glurgey. But for some reason, instead of simply passing it along, it stayed on my shelf.The basic germ of the story is familiar: awkward teen meets troubled teen and they become best of friends. However, this friendship fell apart some eight years before. The story begins with Cameron receiving a letter from Sonia, completely out of the blue, asking her to be the Maid of Honor at her show more wedding. Cameron doesn't reply, but her aging boss begins corresponding with Sonia behind Cameron's back. After her boss passes away, he leaves Cameron a package to be delivered to Sonia - in person. Thus begins a tale of journeys and memories, weaving past and present together. The emotions are almost painfully realistic; I felt fierce sympathy for Cameron, and recalled with some sorrow the day the friendship died between my best friend and myself.I wouldn't say this book is for anyone who's ever lost or found a friend, but for those who have known that sort of bond with another person, this can be an engrossing read. It helps that the descriptions of Boston and Texas are as vibrant as the emotions they invoke in the characters. I finished this one quickly, always wanting to turn the page, to find out if Cameron and Sonia ever find each other, or if Cameron returns to her nomadic existence forever. show less

This was much better than Husband and Wife, a book that I really enjoyed. I think maybe the subject matter in The Myth of You and Me was more to my liking, but I also think that the story was told with more emotion. I liked each of the main characters in this book very much, and even when the story went in a direction that I didn't like the ending wasn't cliche or insulting. This was an honestly told story about a friendship that goes awry, and it was told in such a way that most readers, I think, can see themselves in each of the characters. Bravo, Ms. Stewart!

Oh Camazon, I actually really didn't like you as a person. You are everything I am not in a lot of ways, and I had a hard time relating. In a some ways it's why I liked the book too, to change how I think about life and love and see a really complex friendship from another angle. Good story, even if I felt it dragged a tag from the get go.

The ending of this book is pat, there is no denying that in my eyes, but I can't help but still love the book. The characters are complete and complex; the story fairly developed for chick lit. It is not a classic in the making, but neither is it fluff writing. There were sentences and paragraphs that I loved, making me cherish the book time after time.

The stories of friendships between women are generally not written in a way that makes me respect both sides, but Stewart is able to make me want to comfort both Cameron and Sonia in this novel. Perhaps it is that I can relate to both women's sense of pain, perhaps it is that I have been at fault from both sides, too.

I picked the book up on a $2 clearance shelf, at a used book store. It show more was well loved when I bought it, and it is more so now, after just a few days of being the center of my reading attention. Not sure how much reread potential it has, but it was well worth the time and money I have invested in my copy. show less

I have literally been wracking my brain for a way to write this review. I loved The Myth of You and Me. I guess that's why this review has been so hard for me to write. It's easier to just rip apart a book you completely hate and words come to you so easily when you try to do that. It's also easier to write a review if you liked a book you really expected not to like. I had a feeling I was going to love The Myth of You and Me, so the element of surprise that comes from loving a book you would never have read on your own in a million years, was not really present for me. My point is is that The Myth of You and Me was a wonderful novel.

In The Myth of You and Me, you're intrigued from the first page. Throwing a mystery at the beginning of show more the book is a sure-fire way to keep readers reading even if they hate a book because they're curious as to what the hell happened. That's what happened with me. I didn't at all hate this book, but if I'd had, I still would've kept reading because I needed to know what exactly caused the rift between Cameron and Sonia. While she's telling the story, Leah Stewart, weaves in flashback scenes of the friendship between Cameron and Sonia and we readers start getting a sense as to how strong their friendship was. That intrigues us more as we start to think "It must've been something huge that caused this". The Myth of You and Me sort of exemplifies that while strong friendships really do exist, it can take something small (or not so small) to put a kink in the armor, so to speak. Friendships are strong yet completely fragile. I really got a sense of that in this book.

When it comes to the secondary characters, I found that they were also extremely interesting. Although, Sonia's mother really takes the cake for "Most mysterious/weird Character Ever". The psychology major in me really wanted to know more about her and why exactly she was the way she was. Granted I understood that while she was a major character, she wasn't really a focal point in the whole book, so I could forgive that air of mystery that particular plot point left.

So, The Myth of You and Me was an amazing book. It was an extreme page-turner (I literally read it in one sitting) and I thought that it explored Cameron and Sonia's friendship extremely well. We got to know these women separately and as a whole and how their friendship and the consequent "breaking-up" shaped their futures and the way the were now in the present tense. The Myth of Me and You is highly recommended. show less

Reading this was...odd. It's about two women who were extremely close friends for a number of years, and then fall out because of a betrayal. Then one contacts the other after a long silence, because she is getting married.

Let's just say it hit a little close to home.

Stewart is a good writer. There were a few passages I found lovely and delightful. Her characters are real and vivid. I thought I was going to get through it without any swearing, but no luck--it starts up at about 3/4 of the way in. It's not gratuitous, at least, but...my feelings about that stuff being what they are, it bummed me out. Without that element, it would have been more enjoyable. But it certainly felt real.


I'll be thinking about this, and forgiveness, and my show more resemblance to this protagonist, for a while.

3.5 stars.

More on this and other reviews on fefferbooks.com! show less