The Myth of You and Me: A Novel [Paperback]

Leah Stewart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 25, 2006

When Cameron was fifteen, she and Sonia were best friends—so close it seemed nothing would ever come between them. Now Cameron is a twenty-nine-year-old research assistant with no meaningful ties to anyone except her aging boss, noted historian Oliver Doucet.

Nearly a decade after the incident that ended their friendship, Cameron receives an unexpected letter from her old friend. Despite Oliver’s urging, she doesn’t reply. But when he passes away, Cameron discovers that he has left her with one final task: to track down Sonia and hand-deliver a mysterious package to her.

The Myth of You and Me captures the intensity of a friendship as well as the real sense of loss that lingers after the end of one. Searingly honest and beautiful, it is a celebration and portrait of a friendship that will appeal to anyone who still feels the absence of that first true friend.

A People Magazine “10 Great Reads,” 2005

A BookSense Pick

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stewart peers into the complicated heart of friendship in a moving second novel (after 2000's Body of a Girl). Ever since a cataclysmic falling out with her best friend, Sonia, after college, Cameron's closest companion has been Oliver, the 92-year-old historian she lives with and cares for in Oxford, Miss. Oliver's death leaves Cameron alone and adrift, until she discovers that he has given her one last task: she must track down her estranged best friend (whose letter announcing her engagement Cameron had so recently ignored) and deliver a mysterious present to her. Cameron's journey leads her back to the people, places and memories of their shared past, when they called themselves "Cameronia" and swore to be friends forever. It was a relationship more powerful than romantic love—yet romantic love (or sex, anyway) could still wreck it. Stewart lures the reader forward with two unanswered questions: What was the disaster that ended their friendship, and what will be revealed when Cameron and Sonia are together again and Oliver's package is finally opened? The book is heartfelt and its characters believable jigsaw puzzles of insecurities, talents and secrets, and if Cameron's carefully guarded anger makes her occasionally disagreeable, readers will nevertheless welcome her happy ending.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School–Cameron Wilson, 14, is an overly tall army brat and a new kid in town. She begins an intense friendship with classmate Sonia Gray after the two meet while literally saving one another from disastrous situations. The friendship blows up in college, and Cameron struggles through a small, uninspired life until, at age 29, she ends up as caregiver to elderly Oliver Douchet, a famed historian. Then a letter arrives from Sonia telling of her upcoming marriage and wondering why the two of them had gone their separate ways when they had shared so much. Cameron chooses to do nothing until Oliver dies and leaves a package for her to deliver personally to Sonia. So begins Camerons journey to find and understand her lost friend and, ultimately, herself. The novel unfolds at an unhurried, graceful pace, moving through flashbacks and memories, but the interest in what Oliver could have sent to Sonia sharpens the edge and drives the plot. Teens will appreciate the high-school beginning of this relationship and Stewarts notion that friendship can define a life. A poignant and bittersweet story of love.–Jane Halsall, McHenry Public Library District, IL
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (April 25, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400098076
• ISBN-13: 978-1400098071
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #867,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "You grabbed hold of my life and offered me your own.", October 22, 2005

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Myth of You and Me: A Novel (Hardcover)

Leah Stewart's "The Myth of You and Me" is a touching and intimate character study of two girls who become best friends at the age of fourteen. The story is told mostly in flashback. Twenty-nine year old Cameron Wilson is a live-in aide in the home Oliver Doucet, a ninety-two year old Pulitzer Prize winning historian. One day, Cameron is startled to receive a letter from her former friend, Sonia Gray, whom she abandoned after the two had a major quarrel. Sonia is about to get married and she wants to reconcile with Cameron. Although Oliver encourages Cameron to make amends with Sonia, she decides to ignore the letter. Only after Oliver's death does Cameron decide to look Sonia up and try to make peace with her.

With delicacy and compassion, Leah Stewart examines the pain that both Cameron and Sonia suffer as they grow up. Cameron is an Air Force brat who is forced to move six times in fourteen years, and to make matters worse, her classmates taunt her for being the tallest person in her class. Sonia has a severe learning disability, and she endures repeated beatings and tongue lashings from her abusive and psychotic mother. Sonia puts up a brave front in school, but she reveals her weaknesses and insecurities to Cameron. Cameron has never been in one place long enough to get to know her peers, but with Sonia, she feels right at home. After the two girls spend their high school and college years together, it appears that their friendship will last a lifetime. Unfortunately, when they have a bitter falling out over a man, their relationship abruptly ends.

The author beautifully captures the bittersweet nature of female friendship, which can be a source of great comfort or, when things go wrong, of deep anger and hurt. Through Cameron's eyes, Leah Stewart explores the circuitous paths that a woman takes in life, the memories that never leave her, and her feelings of betrayal when someone whom she trusts breaks her heart. The writing in "The Myth of You and Me" is lyrical, romantic, and heartbreaking. Anyone who has ever been lonely, fallen in love, or regretted the loss of a close friend will be enchanted by this gem of a novel.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, kaleidoscopic view of truth and love, May 29, 2006

By 

Amy Tiemann "creator of www.MojoMom.com" (North Carolina, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Myth of You and Me: A Novel (Paperback)

I am the type of person who doesn't always get around to finishing the assigned book club selection. I picked up "The Myth of You and Me" on my own and read it in one sitting. Other recently-hailed novels have failed to draw me in, but Leah Stewart's story presented an emotionally true to life tale, wrapped in the structure of an unfolding mystery, that kept me reading to find out what had happened.

The characters in "The Myth of Your and Me" are not always honest with themselves or others, but that is part of what makes the story true to life. Characters are kept apart by the unresolved gap between perception and reality. I think that each of us has a fear that it people really knew us, they wouldn't like us, and that current is present throughout the novel. Each of us has a guilty memory of a friendship lost due to mutual fault and failure to forgive. As Cameron and Sonia's friendship is revealed in facets, turned around as though viewed through a kaleidoscope, the story will provoke readers to re-examine their own personal events from a more objective viewpoint. Both characters are at fault for the end of their frienship, but perception of who has committed the greater wrong, at what price, shifts as the full story is revealed.

It's refreshing to see a novel where truly shocking behavior doesn't involve overt violence, but consists of actions born of thoughtlessness and cruelty in a moment of anger, without thought for the consequences. How much do we want to punish the ones that we love? What is the cost to ourselves? Stewart provokes tantalizing ambivalence by challenging us to forgive her characters once we really know them. Can these characters forgive one another? Can we forgive ourselves?

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book was amazing, October 17, 2005

By 

Jessica M. Schlick (Wolverine Lake, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Myth of You and Me: A Novel (Hardcover)

I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever left a friend behind or been the one left behind - it was truly touching and at times scary to me how much I could relate to parts of the story. I was looking for something light to read and I picked this up - Leah Stewart has a very straightforward and appealing writing style, so it's definitely an easy read. But more importantly, the story she tells about Cameron and Sonia and all of the other characters in their lives was so REAL that I missed them all terribly when the book ended.