I present to you The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend.
Don't be fooled by the named Broken Wheel, which could only ever be the moniker of a podunk little Idaho town, because this book is actually set in a podunk little Iowa town. Our first indication that here, friends, we are dealing with an author who is not afraid to push boundaries! Take her searing anti-racial prejudice in casting a solitary black dude who mutely cowers throughout 99% of the story as the grocery store attendent.
As a religious woman myself I was struck dumb by her firm, historically rooted understanding of Christianity. She wrote not one, but two characters that essentially embodied the faith - Some Guy Who's A Minister In Some Church And Gets Bossed Around By A Bossy Church Lady (SGWAMISCAGBABABCL) was one of the most beautiful portrayals of a life devoted to others that I've ever come across, but the true brilliance has to go to Caroline, the Woman Who Contained Every Christian Stereotype and who, in the end, throws away everything she believes in, with absolutely no consequences in sight, in order to embrace Some Random Stunning 25yo Biosexual Fellow She Met On A Bench. I cannot even imagine what sorts of depths it was necessary to plumb in order to find dialogue that reads: "I'm old". I just...words fail me.
George, who turns into an alcoholic and then very successfully cures himself of the disease of alcoholism and then falls off the wagon with a bottle of illegally brewed hooch from under the counter of shotgun-toting Grace the hamburger attendent while walking all night in a cornfield but is cured again, this time with a shower, represents, of course, the Fall of Mankind.
But lest you think the masterpiece strays too far in the direction of the traditional, our author skillfully handles the topic of gay marriage by giving us two gay characters who do absolutely nothing in the whole book except crack jokes and make fancy drinks for everyone and, in one devastating moment, look at each other when the word 'marriage' is mentioned.
Which brings us, of course, to Sara and Tom, our Romeo and Juliet. Tom is, like many of the men in this town of approximately 124 people, movie-star gorgeous, but has no interest in women because of a deep seated undefined hurt that can only truly be addressed by meeting Sara, an incredibly dull bookstore attendent from Sweden who comes to Broken Wheel in a very logical and believable series of events involving the spontaneous, unforseeable death of Amy, who was in love with John, the black grocery store attendent, who wouldn't marry her because of racial tensions he experienced in the South as a young boy. Whew.
Tom loves Sara, but he cannot tell her this because reasons, and Sara loves Tom, but cannot tell him this because she's just a lowly Swedish bookstore clerk and could never be loved by a handsome man from Iowa, but with the quirky help of the town of misfits they manage, in the course of a week to entirely circumvent the US immigration authorities and arrange a sham marriage which, in a surprise ending no one could EVER foresee (spoiler, guys....)
...
...
...
was NOT illegal because they REALLY DID LOVE EACH OTHER.
If you aren't sobbing, I mean really truly in agony over the end of this book, then I don't know what to tell you except that there is also a bookstore stocked with people's leftover paperbacks and Sara both is and is not in charge of it, sort of, and somehow it is wildly successful and Sara always has the perfect book for someone even though the shelves should theoretically contain nothing but cookbooks and old Harlequin romances, and also she manages to get accounts with distributors and starts receiving boxes of new releases although she doesn't own the store and it is only stocking used books.
Also there's a dance.
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