Sam Reviews "The Carousel" (The Locket #3) by Richard Paul Evans

I had read The Carousel back in 2009, and even then I jotted down many a quote that I still love to this day.  It took me way too long to finish this because I moved and took a break from reading right in the middle of it, but I still love this book.  I still don't really see how "The Looking Glass" ties into this and "The Locket" so personally I would suggest just reading "The Locket" then "The Carousel" and judge the books based on that.  I think the love story is so great and (mostly) realistic, which is my favorite type.  And while this is more of a "happily ever after" type story, I do find a lot of my personal philosophy of love articulated in this author's story, which is also my favorite type.

"To dream is to hope.  To hope is to live."

"Love cannot exist without forgiveness and faith is more enduring than understanding."

"I do not understand, with so many people on this planet, so many die alone."

"It was no great coincidence that Della died on her birthday, as every day was Della's birthday.  ... Some delusions, even in the clear-minded, are best left unchallenged."

"Hey, baby, ain't it a shame.  All those curves and me with no brakes."

"Summer is a fever of sorts.  Hot and deceptive.  Like falling in love."

"Faye was perennially summer.  More than bronze-skinned and barefoot, she was the warm nights of the sea-son, the hot breeze that caressed my hair, dampened my brow, and filled each breath.  Summer and all its reckless promise."

"We both knew that it would be our last carefree summer together.  We spent those days constructing our dreams of a life together, clinging to each hour as tightly as a mountain climber holds to the rock face of a vertical climb, tethering our dreams and futures to our promises.  But summer always ends.  And in the end, promises weren't enough."

"There's something about standing on the edge of a cliff that takes the words from you."

"Despite our culture's fascination with death, we go to great lengths to conceal it from ourselves, pushing it out the back doors of hospitals in unmarked vans, and into secluded corners where we can safely get on with the business of ignoring our own mortality."

"I anticipated her evening call as the addict anticipates a fix, knowing all the while that just minutes after she hung up, the rush would wear off and the need for her would be all the greater."

"She was mixed up, perhaps no more than every teenager trapped in the adolescent house of mirrors, but she seemed more confused than most."

"What is it they say about college philosophy?  You remember just enough to screw up the rest of your life."

"I don't know why we delude ourselves that life is predictable and safe, when it's really just a carton of eggs - always just one stumble away from being scrambled."

"There are times when doing what is right and avoiding the appearance of evil are not the same thing."

"It was ecstasy being alone with her. I should have known it could not last."

"Depression is a box of lies. The person trapped in this darkness often is unable to see past its murk to future happiness or even past joys.  They believe, erroneously,  that they have always been unhappy and,  therefore, always will be."

"What remained [of Faye] was numb,  bathed in the psychological anesthetic required for emotional survival."

"The sun will rise again. The only question is whether or not we will be there to greet it."

"Though we pay homage to the gods of intellect and reason,  in the end we believe what we want to believe."

"The drowning man is not picky about which lifeboat he climbs into."

"Love is a reaction of the pituitary. Researchers say that when the pituitary is removed,  that person never feels that whirlwind,  head over heels feeling of love. ...  i think i could have used a pituitary- ectomy years ago.   I'm bad at love.  I just throw my heart up like a skeet target to see if anyone wants to blow it into a million pieces."

"I'm not into fatalism. At least i dont think i am.  But sometimes i think there might be something to it.  I don't believe that we're meant to go through this life alone."

"The opposite of love isn't anger. It's indifference."

"One of the sweetest women I had ever known had just walked out of my life. And the only honest and kind thing I could do was let her go."

"Life isn't like any carousel I have ever known. It's not safe or predictable. We never know where or when someone's going to get off.  There are no promises.  The truth is, if we knew what the ride was like we probably would have just saved the ticket."

"We can't promise our time.  It's not ours to give.   The best we can promise is our hearts.  And the most we can hope for is to live each moment so when it's all over,  there are no regrets."

"I don't know who you are anymore. I don't know what you're thinking.  I'm afraid of you."

Sam Reviews "The Looking Glass" (The Locket #2) by Richard Paul Evans

I did not love this book as much as I loved The Locket.  I felt that it was more of a stand alone book than it was a sequel / prequel, and so I was disappointed it feel second in a series.  I think the story was sweet, well written, and realistic, but it wasn't my preferred story.  I don't typically enjoy historical fiction, which this was, as it was based in the 1850s.  I really love Richard Paul Evans' writing style, and I find his stories entrancing and easy to get through, but I don't see myself rereading this book.  I also don't think it is a necessary addition to it's predecessor.


"I love thee with a love I seemed to lose..."
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"There are those who find God in the order of the universe - evidenced in elements as small as atomic nuclei to forces as massive as the cosmic energy that holds the galaxies at bay."

"Salvation, spiritual or otherwise, is not a solitary matter and along such journeys there are companions placed along our travels and travails, fellow sojourners who forever alter our paths and sometimes carry us when we are too weary to carry ourselves."

"At times, hearts are the most traitorous of devices.  They tumble headlong and blindly toward obvious dangers while they obstinately protect us from that which would likely do us the most good."

"...it is man's nature to distrust those unlike himself and fear those he does not understand."

"...there are moments in one's life more memorable than entire years.  But these moments are those usually wished forgotten."

"As sure as success will destroy a man, it will just as assuredly be imitated."

"How quickly it is forgotten that Midas's gift was a curse not a blessing."

"I do not wonder at the cruelty of this world,  as it seems the nature of it. I find myself more perplexed at why there is good at all."

"I suppose that my anger is more of habit now than sentiment."

"I believe it is among man's greatest quests of life,  not just to see life as it really is,  but to see his part in it."

"Our false beliefs can be a chain to our souls. Only if we hold on to who we truly are can we be free.  The danger is in the forgetting."

"'We do not see things in this life as they truly are - only as we believe they are.  ...we see through a glass darkly - but no glass is so dark, I think,  as the looking glass through which we view ourselves.  Nowhere does man err so greatly than when he looks to see the reality of who he is.' 

"'And who are we?'
"'We are worthy.   Worthy of life. Worthy of love. Worthy of kindness and gentleness. We are not some mistake of God or nature.'"

"'If i tell you, where will i reside in your heart?'
"'I don't know,  but you must have faith in me'"

"Not all pain was equal. There could,  in fact,  be delicious sorrow."

"The greatest shackles we bear in this life are those forged by our own fears."

"I have made a grave mistake. I have carelessly handled a heart entrusted to mine. And in so doing i have broken both."

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."