Welcome to my last Sunday Book Review of the year. Today I’m sharing my review for – The Physics of Relationships by Chas Halpern. An interesting tale of a middle-aged widow and the various relationships she shares with interesting characters in her life.
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Blurb:
A highly readable, intimate story about loss, aging, female friendship, family, and renewal…told with grit and humor.
Lexi is a sixty-year-old widow whose solitary life is thrown into turmoil when a desperate young woman moves in with her, soon followed by the unexpected arrival of her best friend, who has separated from her husband of forty years. The mix of these three very different personalities – a powerful omnivore seeking to live life to the fullest; a sweet, self-denying vegan; and Lexi, a thoughtful, still grieving widow – leads to some surprising (sometimes humorous) situations that force Lexi to re-examine her life. In the physics of relationships, Lexi observes that nature abhors a vacuum. She begins to wonder if she herself has somehow manipulated her circumstances to fill that vacuum…simply to imitate the life she had before the death of her husband.
“[The Physics of Relationships] was a joy to read. I loved the flow of the writing, the profundity of the observations, and the humor. You have truly sketched a very accurate, forgiving, and endearing picture of a woman at this stage of life. Thank you for writing this book.” -Kaiya Cade Smith Blackburn
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My 4 Star Review:
Lexi is a twice married, now widow in her early 60s who is re-evaluating and analyzing her current life. She divorced Greg, her first husband when her two children Tasha and Brandon were young children, and shortly after, married the love of her life, Lawrence. Lexi reaches a point of discovery with the relationships in her life. Her kids are off living their lives when daughter Tasha asks her mother if she wouldn’t mind taking in an old friend of hers, Danielle, who needs a temporary place to stay. Lexi welcomes her into her home, and eventually begins to wonder if she will ever leave. While Lexi is always trying to do the right thing to make others happy, she begins to wonder if Danielle is a good thing for her to have company in her now lonely home. Lexi wants Danielle to get her jewelry business going, and save up some money for her future move, until then Lexi won’t take any rent money, and daughter Tasha begins to feel a bit of envy that her friend has struck such a harmonious relationship with her mother.
Amy is Lexi’s best friend. She’s a bit eccentric and in my opinion, can be quite overbearing. Amy is going through a bit of wondering why she bothers staying married to her husband Phil when life has become too mundane for her liking. Amy decides she’s moving in with Lexi until she can decide what she will do with her own marriage. She is good company for Lexi, and sometimes pushes Lexi out of her comfort zone as we continue to read and wonder if Lexi will succumb to all Amy’s wishes. In this story we are taken in with how Lexi handles the various relationships of the people in her life. As Lexi is a cheerleader for everyone and always weighing the best way to handle life issues and delicate relationships, we discover the give and take of friendships, relationships, marriage, divorce, and children in this adult coming-of-age story as Lexi takes us through her thoughts in this well told ‘memoir-like’ story about life and loss and living, and the forgiveness she ultimately finds with her ex-husband Greg.
As Lexi discovers more about herself and her caring for others, she realizes she’s not looking for intimacy, rather, people in her life that fulfill her and bring her joy. Famous words of Lexi, ” The older you get, the more pain you carry with you. It’s just part of you. Your heart expands to accommodate the hurt.”
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