music, books, love and kindness

I'm in awe of The Beginning Of Us, which I just finished and was immensely relieved (though surprised) had a happy, realistic ending, true to the spirit of the book.

There are so many beautiful things about the novella, especially the writing and mood.

But something else that I loved about it is how Tara and Eliza slowly (very slowly) fall in love and how it's all about the day trips they share and their common interests in nature and literature. When they stay overnight during one of their first weekend trips, they sleep in separate beds. There is not one sex scene anywhere in the story and I find that so incredibly refreshing and sweet, only lovely passages, like this one, that make my heart skip a few beats:

One evening on a walk in the snow, I broke a stick off a bush and wrote I LOVE YOU, ELIZA in the snow, and instead of telling me I had crossed some boundary, you laughed and told me one of the reasons you loved me so much was that I knew how to use commas properly.

In the author information following the end of The Beginning, Sarah Brooks says she writes the lesbian fiction she wishes she could read. I totally get that and sincerely hope she writes lots more in the future.