SAM’S LETTERS TO JENNIFER

Patterson, a former ad man turned megaselling author (The Lake House, 2003, etc.), makes a calculated and obvious appeal to the widest possible reader demographic.

Hugs and kisses, love everlasting, happy tears, and advice from the hereafter—well, at least it’s not another trite book about a dead spouse who likes to talk. It’s a grandmother whose swift and tidy demise begins this epistolary mushfest. But Sam’s granddaughter Jennifer is a young widow who uses words like “awesome,” “totally,” and “very cool” a lot. Anyway, Jennifer is numb with shock when Sam breathes her last. What will she do? Where will she go? Why, to Sam’s lakefront cottage, where she finds a cache of letters, conveniently bundled and sorted. Jennifer begins to read them. But she misses Sam so, so much, Jennifer just wants to cry and cry—and she does. Why, it was Sam who gently coaxed her out of her shell and removed her veil of sadness. But there was so much she didn’t know about her beloved grandmother. Can it be true that Sam didn’t love Grandpa Charles after 26 tedious years of marriage, child-rearing, and household drudgery? Sniff, sniff. Life is so sad. Funny and sad. There are so many letters. This one is about Doc, the man who taught Sam to laugh again and gave her a second chance at love when she was in her 40s and her spirit was drying up like a bug in a web in a corner of a dusty room. How sad and funny is that? Jennifer thinks it would be awesome if she could learn to love again too. Then she meets Brendan, who is so, so cute and nice. Brendan does a very cool thing: he performs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Euphoria, her stricken cat. Wow! Will Euphoria live? Will Jennifer still want to kiss Brendan if he tastes like a hairball?

Love, like, totally conquers all.