On Mystic Lake -book review

⭐️Overall rating: 4/5:

On Mystic Lake

By:Kristen Hannah

Loved the concept of the story. But her going back to her cheating husband who just through her away. I was so angry. Especially, when she found her happiness again. I understand a baby makes it difficult and second chances and all that. But ugh I wish she would have stayed with Nick and Izzy. Not eventually go back. Wish she would have stood up to her husband and said if you want to try this again then date me and I’m living in Mystic because I want my bookstore. Ugh oh well. I’m not the writer I just read. But that’s why I gave “On Mystic Lake” 4 stars.

Cried a little only because I knew she couldn’t be happy with Blake and she was going back to a place she didn’t belong anymore. But I still love me some Kristen Hannah.

“After today, nothing in her well-ordered life would remain the same, and she was not a woman who liked the sharp, jagged edges of changes. She preferred things to run smoothly, down the middle of the road. That was where she felt safest—in the center of the ordinary, with her family gathered close around her.”

“She walked fully through her house, trying to figure out what she’d done that was so wrong, how she’d failed.

If only she knew that, maybe then she could make it all right again. She’d spent the past twenty years putting her family’s needs first, and yet somehow she had failed, and her failure had left her alone, wandering around this too big house, missing a daughter who was gone and a husband who was in love with someone else.”

“People left, and if you loved too deeply, too fiercely, their swift and sudden absence could chill you to the soul.”

“I didn’t know how much it hurt. . . . It feels like . . .”

The humiliating tears burned again. She wished she could stop them, but it was impossible.

“Like your insides are bleeding away . . . Like nothing will ever make you happy again? I know.”

“Depression

On word to describe a mountain of pain. One word to steal the sunlight from a person’s soul and leave them stranded in a cold, gray landscape, alone and searching for something they couldn’t even name.”

“Izzy loves you, Nick. I understand your broken heart—at least to the extent anyone can understand such a thing —but nursing it is a luxury. You’re her father. You simply don’t have the right to fall apart. She needs you to be strong. But mostly, she needs you to be here.”

“Annie, who held Izzy’s hand and brushed her hair and acted like it didn’t matter at all that she didn’t talk. Annie, who was going to make her mommy’s garden grow again.”

“Annie made another quiet sound and rolled toward Izzy. Izzy clamped down on her breath and went perfectly still.

Annie curled her arm protectively around Izzy’s body and pulled her close.

Izzy felt as if she were melting. For the first time in months, she felt as if she could breathe right. She snuggled backward, poking her bottom into the vee of Annie’s bent body, so they were like two spoons pressed together.

With a quiet, happy sigh, she closed her eyes.”

“How do you know she’s watchin’ me?”

Annie smiled at her. “You know. In your heart. That’s why you see her in the fog. You know she’s watching over you, and when it rains . . . That’s when she’s missing you. The rain is her tears, and the sunshine is her smile.”

“I’ll always be inside you, Izzy. You don’t have to disappear or follow me or reach for me. All you have to do is close your eyes and think of me and I’ll be there. You think about the time we went to the circus and I was laughing so hard at the clowns that I fell off the bench. And when you smile at that, you’ll find me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being scared, Izzy. It happens to all of us. What’s wrong is if we don’t try things because we’re afraid. We can’t hide away from the things that scare us.”

“I won’t give up, Annie. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you back. “

She sighed. “Winning was always very important to you, Blake.”

“Before their love song had really begun, it was coming to an end”

“He moved toward her. “ you always used to say that the longest journey begins with a single step.”

“The rain,” he said softly. “It’s an angel’s tears. And every glass you’ve ever seen is half full. Don’t let yourself forget that. I know what it does to a person . . . Forgetting that hope is out there.”

“You’re drowning me, Nick,” she whispered brokenly.

“I don’t mean to. I just wanted to let you know that you aren’t alone. Love can rise above tragedy and give us a way home. You taught me that, and now you need me to remind you.”

“She moved toward him, pressing up on her toes to kiss him. It was the kind of kiss they hadn’t shared in years; slow, and tender, and heartfelt. There was no undercurrent of sexuality in it. It was everything a kiss was supposed to be, an expression of pure emotion—a they had let it go so easily in their life together. She couldn’t remember when kisses had become something perfunctory and meaningless. Maybe if they had kissed this way every day, they wouldn’t be here now, standing together in the middle of the Stanford campus, saying goodbye to a commitment that had been designed to last forever.”

“South was Los Angeles—and a beautiful White House by the sea that held the stale leftovers of her old life.

North was Mystic—and in Mystic was a man and a child who loved her. Once, she had taken love for granted. Never again. Love was the sun and the moon and the stars in a world that was otherwise cold and dark.”

“You’re wrong, Annie. Love matters. Maybe it’s the only thing that does.”

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