A book from the past
 

When I was 14...around 1977 I was at the book store and found a paperback with a very attractive young woman in a bikini on it kissing a young man at the beach....I will admit that being a 14 year male...I was quite attracted to that cover of the beautiful, scantily clad young woman in a bikini....

The actual story turned out to be about a young woman's dysfunctional life from the time she was 13 to 23......from her bipolar mother committing suicide in the first few pages of the book....to her perilous journey into womanhood ...from her frightening first kiss.... to having sex with strangers....to being married too young to a horrible husband.

In truth the subject manner was far to profound for me to grasp at the age of 14 and after wading through about a 1/3rd of it..and really understanding very little of what the book was really saying about this young woman's life....I quit and never finished it.

Now here I am more than 45 years latter....I'm now 56 years old....I recently came across this book in a box of junk I was throwing out.....and its calling to me!!!!

Why is it that I feel sooo damn compelled to read this story now????

I find myself wondering if there is some connection to things I need to understand about my own daughters life....My oldest daughter has has so much seemingly karmic heartache...just things she has struggled with through no fault of her own...such as her first lover dyeing at the age of 23 in there bed while she slept....on the exact day of there sons 2nd birthday!

Why???? Why after so many years is this book calling to me to read it??? Honestly....these days...this kind of semi romance, life issues story is nothing I'd ever want to read!!!

But that book is now sitting on my desk at my office....i keep looking at it and that feeling is just not going away!!!

Who knows why, possibly from what you have explained, that might be the reasons.

You sound ready for it now, that's for sure. I remember buying a book in 2008 thinking I'll read it, but it was way out of my depth back then, and only last year I stumbled across it just like you did in an old box, nearly 10 years later.

I was ready for it, and it touched me.

You are called to read it, so go read it, something profound might come out of it :smile:

Well I've started reading "the book"

25 pages in....It is an emotional and deep story...and it is a story that is impossible to feel neutral about.......45+ years ago....it made no sense at all...now every word burns into my consciousness!

Before I started...I actually had a bit of foreboding about reading it....now the story is gripping me and I don't want to put it down....the author (the story is semi biographical) really has a way of describing the emotions of this young woman!

For anyone interested...the book is called "American Made" by Shylah Boyd