As with her other tales, L.T. Smith captures the pain and awkwardness of insecurity like no one else does. Meshing such intense self-doubt with such a pure love that seems destined from the day the two young girls meet makes all that insecurity much more believable...after all, those of us who question our worth the most are bound to feel we don't deserve the very love we most crave.
Perhaps because there is a lot of pain in here I can relate to I didn't laugh as much as I did when I read L.T. Smith's absolutely amazing See Right Through Me. There are definitely moments where you laugh, but your heart ends up aching more than your stomach does.
Even so, Beginnings is breathtaking when it comes to emotions. The reader is there with Lou as she struggles through childhood, her teens and then life as an adult. She may not always be the most composed or even mature, but she is very real. This line, for instance, is all too familiar:
"I flirt, I am a flirt, but the kind that is shocked when flirting actually works. The kind that when a woman smiles at me in an empty room, I still look over my shoulder just to make sure she’s smiling at me, then look back over it a second time."
Oddly enough (or maybe not, if you have ever been in Lou's shoes) it's the first half of the novel that has most lingered with me. Young Lou is someone your heart just breaks for as she agonizes over her own appeal, what it's like to be in love with someone you shouldn't (or think you shouldn't) and how on earth she's going to move on after losing the best friend she has ever known.
Another constant for Lou (that helps me sympathize with her even when she's a bit maddening) is how she battles her own emotions and longs to master them in certain situations, especially when it comes to Ash, whom she is convinced would "freak" if she knew about her love.
"There was no way I could have done that. I just had to tighten the reins on my feelings, be more careful with what I let show. I would have to learn how to do that. And quickly. But I know for definite—in that split second she held my gaze, she must have seen everything I had tried so hard to keep hidden."
I absolutely love how Beginnings comes full circle, the pop culture references that you might remember from your own childhood, the writing itself and how you can just fall into this story as if it is actually real life. As always when I finish anything by L.T. Smith, I hope there's more around the corner soon! :)
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