Sam Reviews "The Locket" (The Locket #1) by Richard Paul Evans

I loved this story.  First of all, I found myself stopping almost every other page to jot down quotes I want to share (so bear with me for the remainder of this post), which is a great sign of a beautiful story.  Secondly, in addition to being a well thought out set of parallel love stories, there is still an unexpected conflict halfway through.  This review will state I finished the book over the course of three days, but I read the first 25% slowly and finished off the remaining 75% in one night.  I cried for the final two chapters and finished this story saying "But, I want more..." and then pleasantry remembered that there is more to this story!  I cannot wait to start on The Looking Glass.

In addition to the overall greatness of this story, it also touched my heart in a few personal ways, as well.  Firstly, the main character's father was an alcoholic.  My dad was a recovering alcoholic for my entire life.  While my dad may not have succumbed to his addiction, he still had the personality of an addict.  Reading the parts about that the supportive mother/wife, the addict, and the forgiveness was very important tot me.  Also the clear unrequited love story, I am a sucker for stories like that, and this one was especially poignant for me because it made me think of a guy I've never really gotten over.  So because these points stuck out to me, you'll notice a pattern in the quotes I pulled out of the story.

"There are those who maintain that it is a shameful thing for a man to speak of sentiment, and the recounting of a love story must certainly quantify as such.  But if there is virtue in stoicism, I do not see it, and if I haven't  the strength to protest, neither have I the will to conform, so I simply share my story as it is."

"Faye had not yet asked where it was that I was taking her.   Her faith in our journey was not unlike her faith in our courtship,  attributable only to some godlike quality of the female mystique - an unwavering virtue of hope and patience..."

"My mother sacrificed all to protect me from that torment [the demons that haunted my father], to fill her child's heart with hope when her own was broken."

"The instant of my mother's death should have been...something worthy of a woman who suffered life's storms as a shelter for her only child and worried less about her hurt than that I might see her bleed."

"Though my heart ached, I would be lying if I did not admit that there was relief to get the inevitable over with.  Rich and poor did not mix."

"When someone we love is dying,  we do not ask doctors for a price list..."

"...my financial circumstances were the more easily solved of mine and Faye's differences, for all it takes to solve poverty is money.  There were greater deficits left by my father's abandonment.  ...his abandonment was sufficient to take things from me that I could not explain or replace."

"...I knew Faye could not last.  I knew it from the moment we first kissed.  ...  This was landscape I was certain of.  I could see it.  Her father demanded it.  Faye was only a matter of time.  So why, then, didn't she go?"

"Not all heroes are painted on white stallions."

"I liked this man.  He was not so much out of place in these surroundings as they were out of place with him."

"'All women have better taste in clothes than in men. It's easier to pick clothes than men.'
"'The problem with men is that you only get to pick once and then pray he stays in fashion the rest of your life.'"

"That which we expect from life is indeed all that it can ever be."

"There are those who, in the same breath, pray for the poor and for the blessing of never encountering them."

"You're contrary to everything in my life.   You're like a mirage.   It's hard for me to believe that someone as bright and beautiful as you isn't going to disappear when I get near."

"My parents would have me wait until everything in my life is neat and tidy with hospital corners. But life isn't best lived that way. ... I don't want some by-the-book life with neatly penned entrances like it were a Broadway production. I want to live it. For better or worse."

"The greatest acts of altruism have always been performed without audience or plaques."

"I can't decide if I'm protecting her from a more difficult life or protecting myself from when she can't take it anymore and leaves."

"'Do you suppose life gives us second chances?   If we've made a mistake in our lives,  do you think that God or fate gives us a second chance to make it right? '
"'I don't know. But we'd probably just make the same mistake over again.   Maybe I'm wrong. I just don't think I've seen any second chances in my life.' 
"'Perhaps you don't know how to recognize them.'"

"While it may be prudent to not leap until one looks, the longer one stands on the edge of a precipice,  the less likely one is too jump, as one becomes more painfully aware of the length of the fall."

"We are keen at denial, and old age,  like death,  is always someone else's destination."

"'I believe in hell.  And in heaven.  But I think they're the same place.   I believe death wakens us to the consequences of our actions - to feel the sorrow or joy we have caused in our lifetime. The location is irrelevant.'
"'What of the talk of fire and brimstone?'
"'It is figurative. How else could such torment be described?'"

"I believe some things aren't from  this world. It is as if God borrows some souls to share such great gifts."  [Referring to great literature]

"I must remind myself that sunsets too are beautiful,  before they leave you cold,  dark,  and alone."

"A lecture by a philosophy professor proposes that our concept of God is analogous to our perception of our own father."

"'I will never forgive him.'
"'You say that as if forgiveness was a gift you were giving to him.  Your father's dead. What good could forgiveness possibly profit him?   You must forgive him if you are ever to be free of him. We are chained to that which we do not forgive.  Imagine a ship trying to set sail while towing an anchor. Cutting free is not a gift to the anchor. You must release that burden. Not because the anchor is worthy, but because the ship is.'"

"Your father could not control his drinking. He may have been weak,  or chose to give into the weaknesses,  but where did that leave him?  Why did he go to the streets when he could have stayed where he was warm and safe?  As pathetic a man as you think your father was,  he may have been honest enough with himself to know that he was too weak to ever change.  It is possible that your father left to free you and your mother."

"That which we spend our lives hoping for is often no more than another chance to do what we should have done to begin with."

"He spoke profoundly of trivial things which, I suppose,  is better than the inverse."

"Under the moon's glow he somehow looked different to me. Perhaps it is,  has always been,  that the moon gives visage only to that which is already within us."

"...to protect my heart from further disappointment with cynicism ... would be like poisoning oneself to avoid being murdered."

"The jury does not find you innocent,  they find you not guilty. They're not the same thing."

"The greatest tragedy is not to die unknown by strangers, but unloved by our companions"

"We looked at each other like strangers,  unsure of each other's hearts."

"While the life I lead may not match the picture in my head,  perhaps the one offered me is just as full of joy,  its pigments just as bright, just not what I expected."

"It felt wrong that I might open the door and Esther not be there. ... if, perhaps,  trespassing [the room]  would violate the memories that we had shared, rewriting over them  with a hollow,  lonely script."

"God does allow us second chances. But sometimes they're just best given to someone else."

"Shoshone Indians did not bury their dead,  but rather collapsed their homes around them."