Book 35: All the Stars in the Heavens by Adriana Trigiani

Format: Hardback

Date Started:  July 21, 2019
Date Finished:  August 2, 2019

I picked this book up on a trip to the library with my little dudes.  It's August and over 100 degrees outside, which means that there is no such thing until outside until mid-to-late September, so we do a lot of indoor based activities where people won't judge you for being super excited and/or being loud and/or running around and/or announcing that you have to go potty.  

Our local library is really great at enticing you into opening books that you might not have ever noticed.  For example, I am always a sucker for the display shelf called "While You're Waiting."  I appreciate this little set-up because 1) I like that the library acknowledges that there are "hot" books that everyone* wants to read so you will be waiting a long-ace time for the book you really want.  (#sorrynotsorry) and 2) some wonderful kindred soul has spent time actively thinking about what makes the hot book hot and picked lesser known books that check the same boxes. 

Librarians and book worms are wonderful human beings.

I think this book was listed as a Read Alike for "City of Girls" by Elizabeth Gilbert which I have no interest in at all.  However, I was super-interested by the fictionalization of the true story of Clark Gable's secret love child.   Excellent - onward with illicit affairs and their consequences!

While I enjoyed the story overall, it felt a little moralistic, probably because our leading lady, Loretta Young, and her assistant were devoutly Catholic.  This contrasted nicely with Mr. Gable's incredibly loose interpretation of his marriage vows. 

The pacing of the story was slow; the first half of the book covered a span of two months, but the entire second half of the book spanned 40 years.  It was weird, though, because even though the second part of the book seemingly sped through decades, it still felt really slow. 

Overall, I enjoyed the story and am hoping to find "The Call of Wild" (which is the whole jumpin-off point for the book) on TV or Netflix.  It's 101 today, and I would like to imagine myself in a blizzard.

* In this case "everyone" means book people.