48. Let It Be Me

Let It Be Me. Becky Wade. 2021. [May] 378 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: Mom and Dad are not my biological parents. Leah Joanna Montgomery blinked slowly, then squinted at the DNA test results displayed on her computer screen, straining to digest the information displayed there.

Premise/plot: Leah Montgomery is a math teacher dreaming of earning her Ph.D. She's spent the last ten years raising her younger brother, Dylan. Her dad is long, long gone. Her mom is long gone. She likes thinks regular--logical, precise, predictable. So when she's surprised by the DNA results, she's flustered. Soon flustered becomes a way of life--much to her dismay and displeasure. As she is actively seeking out how she got switched as a newborn baby (not so she can meet her birth parents just so she can reason out how everything played out twenty-eight years ago), she's also possibly maybe feeling attraction for the first time ever. 

Sebastian Grant is a pediatric heart surgeon who has been pining away for the angelic woman who stopped at the scene of his car accident. Though he's never really had time or energy to date or fall in love, he knows that this mystery woman whom he spent a few minutes with before the ambulance arrived is his one and only true love. When not preoccupied with this mystery woman, he listens to his best friend, Ben Coleman, talk endlessly about his coworker--a math teacher--whom he's head over heels in love with. They've known each other two years and he's never actually flirted with her--not even once. 

When Sebastian sees THE ONE again it's to quickly arrive at the conclusion that his dream woman is one and the same with Ben's dream woman. Of course this means that Sebastian can't ask her out on a date even if Ben doesn't have any actual plans on asking her on a date any time soon.

My thoughts: This was my first time reading a full-length novel by Becky Wade. Let It Be Me is the second in a series. It's entirely possible some of the characters also made appearances in the first novel in the series, Stay With Me.

I wanted to enjoy Let It Be Me more than I did. I've only ever heard positive things about Wade's writing. 

I was disappointed. I thought it was over-written and saturated in melodrama. (Yes, I realize using the word saturation to describe the melodrama is in itself a bit over-written and melodramatic.) The book reminded me of the 1991 film Soapdish. (And I don't think it was meant to...at all.) 

I do think Leah is a neurodivergent heroine. I do think she's on the spectrum. I think this accounts for the social awkwardness of the dialogue. (Leah herself would be the first to admit that when it comes to social interactions, she's a bit awkward and unsure. She prefers bluntness and directness.) 

I am willing to explain away some of the writing style as Wade's living inside the character of Leah. But I really don't know how to explain away the rest. I never knew that verbs, adjectives, and adverbs could be so annoying and obnoxious. 

The story is melodramatic and a bit busy. I think there were too many stories trying to be told within one novel. I felt a bit of a disconnect with all the characters. 

Quotes:

• A metaphorical ghost reached past her skin and squeezed her organs in a cold, tight fist.
• Scintillating conversation concluded, he slunk toward the kitchen.
• She gazed out the expanse of windows on the front size of her rectangular box of a home. The large panes of glass overlooked a steep, wooded valley with a creed at its base. On this seventh day of May, the crisp, vivid green of the trees blanketing the north Georgia Blue Ridge contrasted with the cheerful orange azaleas blooming in her front planting bed.
• The ghostly fist that had a hold of her insides squeezed harder.
• The story of her conception was well known to her and somewhat south of disappointing.
• He spun and scanned the people in his field of vision.
• Dark satisfaction curved his lips.
• "You're going to be just fine," she said. He was not going to be just fine without her.
• It was like he'd been walking through time in a space suit that kept out joy.
• Sebastian jerked off his sunglasses and pushed them into the chest pocket of his lightweight gray-and-white checked button-down.
• His eyebrows knit.
• The woman extended a hand and poured change into a customer's palm.
• His breath left him.
• Everything was suddenly sharper than it should be--his determination not to let her go again, sounds, the color of her sweater. 
• He was about as interested in metaphors as he was in farmers markets. But she could talk to him about metaphors for days, and he'd drink every word.
• Disappointment snarled inside him, prowling for an outlet.
• Love had vibrated through every cell of her adolescent self. And over the seventeen years since, that love had proven deep and staunch, the most unchanging aspect of her life.
• A sheen of tears misted her eyes.
• Lifting her head, she consciously relaxed the muscles tension had seized.
• She'd been working to metabolize her genetic truth.
• Silence exploded inside Sebastian's car.
• Sebastian Grant strode into view, walking purposefully from the parking lot toward the entrance doors, looking for all the world like a man unfettered by anyone else's opinion of him.
• He entered, his chin swinging the direction of Magnolia Perk. She lifted a hand in greeting. He closed the distance, his charisma imposing.
• His surgeon's hands were large with short, clean nails, and blunt fingertips. Even though relaxed, his fingers communicated proficiency.
• What in the world was happening? This felt like a pleasurable menstrual cramp even though the relationship between cramp and pleasurable was a non sequitur. 
• A blush glided up her cheeks. She neutralized it by drawing in air and common sense.
• Like a tugboat, his mind pulled him to Leah.
• Within Sebastian, something fundamental went completely still.
• Dylan's hair fell around his head more rakishly than usual.
• She suspected he'd donned his gray T-shirt after picking it up off the floor. Its neckline revealed his thin, pale clavicles.
• The window behind Dylan framed him with color. On this warm, bright evening in June, wisps of cloud had snagged their hems on the peaks of her valley.
• Her face radiated pragmatism.
• She'd thought about Sebastian Grant often over the past few days, because thinking about him caused delight to rumble within her like kernels of corn about to pop.
• Trees conspired to crowd out most of the starry sky.
• The papers within had turned beige and brittle with age. A smattering of mold splayed across the top right edge.
• His body roared in response, and he had to lock his teeth together to keep from saying, Don't fall in love with Ben. Please don't.
• When Leah arrived home from Atlanta that evening, her house welcomed her with silence and a lingering whiff of pineapple from her unlit candle.
• The deliciousness of the first bite liquefied her spine.
• Sebastian laughed, then took an unrepentant sip of his drink.
• Opulent minutes spun, one into the next.
• She could feel the hammer of her heart, hear the hitch in his inhalations. 
• A tornado had formed within Sebastian back when Dylan had told him Leah's location.
• After a night of shredded sleep, Sebastian woke to gray weather and a black mood.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible