The Magic of Ordinary Days: A Novel

Back when this book then movie came out I was too busy as a single mother working 2-3 jobs to keep our home together. Seeing pieces of the movie on REELS I just fell in love with what I could catch. As a book worm of older days I know how much more a book can detail in a story as the book as a ton of time to give to the reader. I read this book in 2 days. Maybe one day I will be able to sit and watch this wonderful movie.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. I read it because I saw clips of the Hallmark movie and I love the lead actors. It was lovely that the movie stayed so true to book. I was, like many people disappointed in the end. Neither the movie nor the book did that well but I will say I liked the movie better. Throughout the book, I felt the author stayed true to the plight of a woman that got herself in “trouble” during this time. I understood her prejudice against the bumpkin life as well as how he wore down her walls to allow her to let him in. And I loved her friendship with Lorelei and Rose but I hated how she just left them to endanger themselves in the end and everything ends up great and joyful for her and so terrible for them in the book. I’m not a fan of fundamentally changing the ending or any part of a book for a movie or show but my compliments to Hallmark for doing what they could to make it better. The end to this book aside the writing was engaging. The characters multidimensional. The story the right kind of mix of beautiful visualizations of mood and landscape while also providing actions and showing the plot instead of telling the plot. I genuinely enjoyed 90% of the book.

I’d watched the movie many years ago, enjoyed it very much, so when I found the book I had to read it. The movie helped to put faces to all the characters in the book rounding out a gentle love story born out of abandonment and loss into one of warmth and love.

I love this book. I have read it twice and it will be one I read over and over. The characters are tangible and likable. Ray will steal your heart. It is a beautiful love story threaded with WWII history. The ending is well worth the read. The movie by Hallmark is wonderful, but couldn't touch the tenderness, pain, and love found in the novel. The plot consists of straddling WW II, prejudice, and an unwed mother-to-be who marries, out of convenience, an uneducated farmer. She is a highly educated young lady which is rare for that time. She finds herself desolate on a 200 acre farm with no neighbors, pining for the soldier that abandoned her and the mother she recently lost. I think it is mostly a story about the healing power of love. It is not high literature, it is not even well-known, but It is one of the most immaculate examples of steadiness and control over a plot I have ever read; akin to Kazuo Ishiguro. I highly recommend this book. It is a great read for a book club as it encompasses literary finesse as well as I great plot.

I should say at the outset that the Hallmark movie based on this book is not s typical Hallmark movie. It has more depth—probably because of the book. I have loved the Hallmark movie for years, so the last time I watched it, I decided to read the book (after all, the book is ALWAYS better). What had drawn me to the movie/book was the characters; the simple, yet magical, story; and the actors (great casting). Most of the book was as good as (albeit slightly different from) the movie. It filled in a lot of the background, and I liked the historical details. But the ending was MUCH different in ways I found significant. I only gave the book three stars because I thought the book ending was HORRIBLE. At the core of it was a tragedy, with racist elements (and perhaps even elements of mysogyny and paternalism) that disrespected all the characters, but esp. the three main female characters. One could say Hallmark altered the ending to give it the typical rosey Hallmark ending. However, I think the Hallmark movie fixed a problem with the book, was more true to the characters, AND was more respectful not only of the characters, but also of the love story at its core. When I got to the part of the book where it became clear that tragedy was going to be unavoidable, I was so disappointed I could hardly read on. But I did. The book is in first person narrative, and the last few paragraphs are more true to the story, and satisfying. HOWEVER, the last paragraph is an abomination and seems tacked on. It could easily be deleted.

From my blog review: During the Second World War, Livvy becomes pregnant by a soldier who seems to forget about her as he steals off to the front lines. Her minister father arranges for her to wed a shy farmer about an hour out of La Junta, Colorado. She can deliver the baby and be part of a respectable family. Livvy recognizes Ray immediately for the kind and gentle man he is. But, also for the limitations of his experience. He is a beet farmer and while he receives special treatment for his integral work (gasoline unlimited during fuel rations, unlimited sugar to sweeten the beets), his life has been a secluded and lonely one---made more so by the passing of his brother Daniel at Pearl Harbour. Ray is someone who will love completely anyone he has to love. This greatly put me in mind of that old John Knowles quote from A Separate Peace : "When you love something it has to love you back in whatever way it has to love." Livvy recognizes his peace and patience, yes, but she is still waiting for life around the corner. She tells us: I had never run in my life in order to meet men or find romance, although I wasn't immune to those things, either. I'd always dreamed that someday love would come into my life in some spectacular fashion. Probably it would happen in another country, on board a ship, most likely it would unfold during one of my future treks to uncover a secret history. One side of me knew that these were the dreams of an inexperienced girl, and yes, I was inexperienced in love; but it didn't bother me. Olivia's dream was to become an archaeologist and excavate the earth for the past. When her mother got sick and the marriage of her sisters dictated that she be the one to care for the ailing woman, Olivia saw her dreams shelved. Now they are interred in some hidden place as she is flung out into the middle of nowhere- Colorado, an hour from the nearest library, bound to a man she cannot hope to understand. All the while, she is aware of the life growing inside her and how the baby's presence will plot her securely to the land even more. In short, Livvy's life seems to be over. What Magic of Ordinary Days works well at is creating a pyramid of several interlocking events ---some historical---some fictional that tier upon one another in layers seemingly simplified by the narrative conjecture of a well-spun story. The interception of Ray's familial history and the arrowheads and artefacts Livvy unearths around the farm gently nudge this taut symbolism onward. Olivia is right to recognize that "just listening to the radio news is a study in history, Especially now" as the Second World War ravages around her. To bring the War more firmly to home soil, Creel presents us with two Japanese American women who work on Ray's farm: Lorelei and Rose. Their pride, their normalcy, their dedication to the land and to try and establish their right to live as Americans as they always have ( despite the immediate racism and prejudice incurred by Pearl Harbour) are a welcome way to bring the War Front to the idyllic farm life. There are several lovely nuances to the story that exhume history in ordinary ways much as the title bespeaks ----the enchantment and surprise one can find during the seemingly redundant circumstances that silently stilt our lives along. The most important aspect for me, was the burgeoning and well-trained love she began to experience for her husband. Can one teach love? Can one learn to love? Creel would have us believe that circumstance and time and the right re-jigging of our personal preferences to explore new horizons would prove so. In the past, Livvy explains, I would've listed things such as common interests, mutual attraction, worldliness and higher education. My freedom above all else. If I had found love, it would have had to be the kind that overwhelmed and overpowered all else. What she speaks above is direct to her personal experience for Ray loves her completely and it suffuses his every word and action since his arrival. At one point, as they start to explore physical intimacy, Livvy describes his touch over her curves as that lining the rim of a delicate china tea cup. He treats and explores her very much in the same way she delicately muses and delights over her priceless artefacts. Ray loves her because she is his. She came to him. He doesn't know how else to exist other than to immediately love his new wife and their new baby. Livvy quite realistically rails against this consuming love, especially as housed in the vessel of a shy and awkward farmer, but the more she studies Ray and the more she learns to accept that she deserves something so wholly consuming and pure, the more she can fall into his passion for her. It takes time, though I wanted to understand his love, to see it clearly before me, to put it into a form that I could roll around in my palm and examine like modelling clay. Or I wanted to write it with words of reason and illustrate it with romance. I wanted to study it as once I'd studied my books. Livvy's lesson in accepting the grace-that-bowls-her-over of Ray's love is the same lesson she learns in forgiving herself for the momentary lapse of judgment that led her to sleep with an officer on furlough. Yes, there is a trope--- a trope that sews everything from Sarah Plain and Tall to Love Comes Softly ---the story of the mail-order bride or the marriage of convenience. If you love these stories and if you want to read possibly the best and most thoughtful incarnation of a romance budding from circumstance and acceptance, then this is the book for you.

I got this book because I enjoy the movie of the same title. Yes, the book is much better but this does not detract from my appreciation of the movie. I sincerely appreciate how the author put so much thought into the development of her characters. Hearing the story as told from Livy made it so much more real to me. A lonely young woman who sees herself as a doormat vives herself to a stranger in the hope of a future of love to only find herself as the product of a one-night-stand, and is now with child. The oldest sister, an independent graduate student, forced into a marriage with a farmer who is a complete stranger to her. I understand her bitterness and resentment. I also understand her self loathing and her looking at the baby as a mistake. The man she is now married to, whom she doesn't love and has no intention of doing so. His unconditional love of her and her child is a lesson to my heart of what love can be. I equate this to my Lord's unconditional love of me. Livy grows to genuinely love him. When she attests of her love of Ray to the reverend,and Ray's sister Martha, it also attested of her self forgiveness and of his taking her ashes of her dreams of what might have been and them turning them into something so precious and rare. Thank you Ms. Creel for such a lovely story.

I absolutely loved this book, and couldn’t put it down! This was chosen for my book club, and I think there will be so much to discuss.

Loved this. A clip from the TV movie came up on my Facebook feed and I noticed it was from a book so I bought the book. I enjoyed it very much. I good read, with lots of information about WWII. I thought the movie would be worth watching, so I watched it on YouTube. It was good and true to the book.

I watched its movie on YouTube. Not my first choice for whatever reason. Again it kept popping up. I watched it twice. I can't get enough of them. I wish there was more to it after the happy ending. Then I bought the book. Its price is out of my comfort zone for an ebook but I did not care. I read every single words. Movie a bit different. The movie Director sure knew how to pick up Actors. How did they know? How did they decide who's who to make that wonderful couple. I was so touched when Livvy realised that Ray is "the one" and when she let him in towards the end.

A sweet little romance that was made into a sweet movie. Touches on the post Pearl Harbour discrimination against Japanese.

Prachtig boek

Una historia de amor hermosa.