Book Review: *Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe* by Jennie Shortridge

Back-of-the-book-blurb:  When she learns that her college sweetheart husband has been seeing another woman, Mira Serafino’s perfect world is shattered and she wants no one, least of all her big Italian family, to know. She heads north—with no destination and little money— stopping only when her car breaks down in Seattle. She takes a job at the offbeat “Coffee Shop at the Center of the Universe,” where she’ll experience a terrifying but invigorating freedom, and meet someone she’ll come to love: the new Mira.

She is Too Fond of Books’ Review:  Jennie Shortridge’s novel Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe (which, for the sake of avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome I’ll refer to as Love and Biology) grabs you and doesn’t let you go.  As I read and became more and more emotionally invested in Mira and her situation, I brought the book with me everywhere – in the car for “down time” during carpools, in line at the Post Office, out on our front porch during a mild fall afternoon; it was the first thing I read over breakfast, and the last thing I read before shutting my light out at night.  For two days the book consumed me; it’s still with me.

Perhaps it’s because I’m close in age to Mira Serafino, the protagonist.  Perhaps it’s because I could see myself, or a friend, in a mid-life situation where our comfortable lives ceased to exist (don’t worry mom, that’s hypothetical!).  It may have been Mira’s strained relationship with her daughter that struck a chord.  Whatever the connection, Shortridge’s prose pulled me in.

This is a substantial novel with a very well-developed main character.  We become intimately acquainted with Mira, and watch her grow as she settles into her new life in Fremont, Washington.  We learn about bits of her past that have shaped her desire to be “the good girl,” and cheer her as she resolves to be “perfectly imperfect.”  Mira’s plan to improve the efficiency of the coffee shop is an apt metaphor for her life:

She had big plans for reorganizing the production line so it was more efficient.  [They] were always bumping into each other, and nothing at the Coffee Shop at the Center of the Universe was in its logical place.  Especially not her.

I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest while reading Love and Biology.  Mira and husband Parker lived in their Pacifica oceanfront home for twenty years, painstakingly renovating and refurbishing it, turning it from a beach cottage to their family home.  The city of Fremont, the self-appointed “center of the universe” is the setting for Mira’s new home as a single woman.  I’d like to visit this artsy community and sit for a latte at a coffeehouse, imaging Mira and her new friends behind the counter.

Three or four sections are short glimpses from the perspective of Thea, the Serafino’s young adult daughter who struggles to balance her desire for independence from Mira’s smother-mothering with her own need to know a mother’s love.  These short chapters are skewed toward Thea, although they are told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, as is the rest of the novel:

Her mother was crazy about details … and about making sure Thea knew them, ingested them.  Mira was a mother bird, regurgitating what she deemed nourishing down her baby’s throat, never asking if the baby wanted it or not.

Across the board, Shortridge writes insightfully of Mira’s relationships – with family – Parker, her father, grandmother Nonna, Thea, estranged brother Fonso; with friends – her close friend Lannie, who has seen her through twenty years of child-raising, new friends and customers at the Coffee Shop.  There is humor and understanding as Mira struggles to control her peri-menopausal emotions and sex drive; remedies include a homeopathic progesterone cream, contemplation of a one-night stand, and El Wando.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of Love and Biology.  Walk with Mira as she is forced outside her comfort zone and wonders if she is “losing her real self, or finding it?”

Scroll up to the previous post to read a wonderful essay Jennie Shortridge wrote about the power of women readers.  This review of Love and Biology is part of Jennie’s TLC Book Tour.  Visit the rest of the tour stops for other reviews, interviews, guest posts, and more!:

• Saturday, November 1st:  Estella’s Revenge (author interview)
• Monday, November 3rd:  Booking Mama (review and guest post)
• Wednesday, November 5th:  She is Too Fond of Books (review and guest post)
• Friday, November 7th: Curly Wurly Gurly
• Monday, November 10th:  Fizzy Thoughts
• Wednesday, November 12th:  Tripping Toward Lucidity
• Friday, November 14th:  Literarily
• Monday, November 17th:  Shelf Life
• Wednesday, November 19th:  Musings of a Bookish Kitty
• Friday, November 21st:  Bookshipper
• Monday, November 24th:  Minds Alive on the Shelves
• Wednesday, November 26th:  Book Addiction
• Sunday, November 30th:  B & b ex libris

For more information on the author and her novels, visit her website, where you’ll find an interview with Jennie and discussion questions for Love and Biology, a suggested playlist of songs mentioned in the novel, and several of her essays.  Jennie really enjoys talking to book groups as they discuss her novels; visit this page to read her suggestions for livening up your book discussion (Pig Latin anyone?), and to find out how to request a conference call with your group.

Jennie Shortridge’s website is beautful, fun and informative.  What types of things do you like to see on an author site?