Dear Mr. Knightley

by Katherine Reay
Hennepin County Library paperback 317 pages
genre: Christian romance

Now I have to see the movie Daddy Longlegs . . . or read the book. This story was inspired by that 1912 book by Jean Webster (but I had never heard of it before). Delightful little story about a girl named Samantha Moore who moved through the foster care system and ended up at Grace House, a group home. A benefactor offers her a scholarship to attend journalism school and she initially turns it down, wanting instead to work and live in an apartment (and to be away from Grace House).

page 26 - Sam's introspection and different perspective than Kyle, the boy she goes running with. I like the Sam / Kyle scenes. They are dynamic and interesting. (as on page 56 when Coach Ridley intervenes during one of their runs and she thinks  - "I don't like losing. And I don't like criticism.")

page 69 - "Consider it grace - a gift unwarranted and undeserved." / also I have a post-it that says "Katie!" because the narrator writes "Then I'm coming after you if this turns weird."

page 123 - Again, with Kyle, she says, "I finally stopped my inane chatter and told him the truth about school and all my other struggles. It helped us both - shared failure is always a comfort." Truth is powerful, indeed!

page 141 - I love when she writes about The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Aslan. "There's no Aslan in the real world, so there's no hope. Mrs. Muir would say I'm wrong. She says there is hope in God and hope in Christ." I love how this sweet couple, the Muirs, share their faith, their lives, their home . . . I want to be like that!

page 147 - "Maybe that's what love is - sacrificing yourself to save another . . . " Again she was talking with and about Kyle. That kid was my favorite character in this book! I love how he encouraged Sam to share their stories.

page 149 - "As we headed to bed, Mrs. Muir prayed for me. No one has ever done that before." Love love love this!

page 216 - "Love spills out of these people. That's what I want. Settling for anything less is a lie." It's ironic that she's writing about love to Mr. Knightley . . .

page 267 - The Ridleys' prayer when they have dinner after adopting Kyle. Awesome!

page 280 - "How can I not believe that there is a God who exists and loves, when the people before me are infused with that love and pour it out daily?"

page 301 - The story was so captivating until this point. The rest was pretty much a let-down. Her big revelation about Ebenezer Scrooge realizing that others were more important than he was . . . just lame.

I loved the romance, the Kyle/Sam growth dynamic, the literary allusions (though there were some I had to look up!), and the overall tone of the story. I liked many of the characters.

 

I wrote the above after reading this book for the first time in 2015. Now that our book club has read four other Reay titles, I was curious about her very first being my favorite. I re-read it yesterday (08.30.2020) and can affirm that it IS my favorite Reay book. I love it!