TEXT FOR YOU

A grieving young woman sends texts to her dead fiance’s phone number, not realizing that someone else is receiving the messages.

Clara and her fiance, Ben, had an argument, and later that night, he died in a tragic accident. Two months later, as Clara struggles with her grief, she sends a text to Ben’s phone, knowing he won’t receive it but seeking new ways to cope. Miraculously, sending the text does help a bit, so she sends another the next day, and again the day after that. She never imagines that Ben’s number might have been reassigned to a new customer. Meanwhile, across town, Sven can’t figure out how to respond to the cryptic texts he’s been receiving. After only a few messages, it’s obvious the texts are coming from a grieving woman. Rather than alert the sender she has the wrong number, Sven, who’s dealing with struggles of his own, does nothing. Gradually, he begins to enjoy the texts, even looking forward to them and despairing on days when none arrive. His co-worker Hilke keeps pushing him to uncover the sender’s identity, and before long, Sven is persuaded, using clues from the copious texts to track Clara down. Though he’s already somewhat smitten without even knowing what she looks like, he worries that when they finally meet, she’ll hate him for having read her private messages. Told alternately from Clara's and Sven’s perspectives, the novel has been translated effectively from its original German, the only indication of the book’s origin the names of towns and rivers. Clara and Sven are each well-developed characters with complex interior lives and endearing idiosyncrasies. The story’s supporting characters feel more typecast, but they play their roles sufficiently to move the narrative forward. The story is at its strongest when Clara and Sven are interacting, with the intervening scenes hampering the book’s momentum. Similarly, after its initial setup, the plotline is rather predictable. Even so, the deeply emotional nature of Clara’s texts and Sven’s heartfelt reactions as he reads them are sufficiently absorbing that readers will keep turning pages to see how the characters reach the story’s inevitable conclusion.

An entertaining and romantic story about second chances and moving forward after loss.