Loose Connections (Abacus Books)

by Maggie Brooks and Maggie Brooks

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0349101388
• ISBN13: 9780349101385
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Abacus
• Length: 173 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Connecting with, "Loose Connections"

I bought this book for my wife in 1992. I'm reading it for the fourth time. Sally is a decent, young English woman. She is intelligent, well read and traveled, introspective, articulate and even mechanically inclined. She is also a "radical" feminist wannabe who who hopes to travel from London to Munich in a vehicle that she and two friends built from scratch in order to attend a women's convention. She wants a traveling companion to split gas money and driving time with. The ad she takes out requests a "non-smoking, vegetarian feminist"; someone like herself. Of course, the only respondent is... Harry. Harry is another decent Londoner but from a part of the city Sally knows little about. Harry is (or was) a factory worker, just like his sister is and dad and grandad probably were. In spite of limited means and choices throughout his life, Harry is genuinely cheerful, upbeat and outgoing - the sort of guy who can make you feel like an old friend after being around him for just a short time. He also has a whopping, big secret that he hopes to carry all the way to Germany and a few smaller ones, too. In spite of some serious misgivings, Sally agrees to take Harry along for the ride... and the adventure begins. Sometimes it's hellish, sometimes it's near heavenly. Through it all, Harry and Sally are like two magnets; sometimes repelling each other, sometimes... not. Through it all they remain side by side. Almost. I don't make a habit of reading "chick" books. My favorite authors include Clive Cussler, Stephen King, Douglas Adams and St. Luke. I don't know why I have such a soft spot for Ms. (Mrs.?) Brooks' story. But I do. Maybe it's because she does such a fine job describing what goes on inside people's heads. Maybe it's watching the scrapes - and fun - two people can get into on what should have been a simple road trip. Or it could be in watching two very different and very likable strangers discover that the other has something they actually need; and it ain't gas money. I think a lot of us have experienced that. Finally it could be the moral of this story which is, as I see it and some singer stated it, "only kindness matters". It's just an easy, enjoyable, fun book to read. Okay, mostly easy. As an American some of the distinctly English terms sent me running for my Encyclopedia Britannica; words like "mews", Brighton Pavilion, M.O.T.'s etc. So I learned something, right? As far as I can tell, Maggie Brooks wrote only one other book, "Heavenly Deception", which I hope to read in the near future. I wish she would have given us more. Gary Paddock Mozarks