Asking a romance reader to pick a favorite Saffron A Kent novel is like demanding a serial romantic tell you their favorite lover, an astronomer their favorite star... The reader may equivocate while lovers and astronomers will hem and haw saying they adore their favorite things all the same just differently. However deep down they all have one book, affair, mistress, star, constellation that changed them forever.
I’m not going to beat around the rose bush but I will tell you that this is the best book I have ever encountered in 2019, by this author period, since I first started devouring novels ever, and when I am 90 years old I will demand and insist that if you read only one book in your life, definitely make it Dreams of 18— a story that is hopelessly romantic, thrilling, and dark, and beautiful, standing out as edgy taboo in the juggernaut of contemporary fiction.
About the book and characters:
Violet Moore: is a teenager who on the surface has a privileged childhood complete with a brittle and distracted mother and a sister who needs to be the center of attention at any cost. This is just the stucco exterior though, deeper Violet is an old soul, a lover of vintage music and the moon, lollipop eater, dear diary keeper, tree climber, star seeker from on roof tops at 2 am..... sadly all these qualities that make her wonderfully strange are seen as nuisance to her mother and sister alike. Violet tires her best to navigate this world with sharp edges while keeping her own desires dormant, until she sees the next door neighbor Mr. Edwards...and that is when need starts to bloom. (oh also Mr. Edwards is a bit older—minor detail)
The next two years are a mixture of stolen moments and glances and roses, Violet even steals the scent on his T-shirts. Her disguise to hide her obsession is frail and eventually a scandal breaks when she and Mr. Edwards are discovered sharing an accidental kiss the night of her 18th birthday.
The events that follow are what happens when one moment (as opposed to the 34 million random things you did but no one cared about), ruins your entire life, dismantling it piece by pieces and ultimately defines how society sees you.
Sticks and stones can break your bones but words and spun rumors will forever curse you:
In the aftermath Violet develops horrible panic attacks, crippling social anxiety and Mr. Edwards in turn leaves his job, the town, and goes into hiding becoming an ill tempered reclusive curmudgeon (well seclusion only makes him hotter so readers should fret not).
A bunch of stuff that happens next:
I’m not going to spoil the book but to sum it the rest of the story is about breaking that curse, finding beauty, and making the world feel like a safe place again for both Violet and Mr. Edwards.
Reflections:
Kent’s books have always been a play of classic works and fairy tales. In this case, Dreams of 18 is an amalgam of Beauty and the Beast and a bit of Lolita (with all the delectable guilt but minus the breaking the law part) oh and Little Red Riding-hood (Mr. Edwards has big eyes and big hands and ahem ahem big everything else).
What I loved the most:
All of Kent’s characters are radically honest and vulnerable; this is a strength not a weakness in a world we become distorted by other people’s judgment. And when it comes to being women navigating sexuality between what feels like society’s two approved choices of A- "slutty" or B- "prude”. Saffron’s Violet offer another alternative. She maybe just who you want to be when you transcend as a female and leave all these forces feed notions behind becoming just you, a woman with her own wants.
The prose in the book is also nearly lyrical and this author really know how to takes the simplest of words like “honey”, “baby” “bad”, ”red” “rose”, and just unravel the ordinary into something sacred, captiviting as a drop of ink blooming in a glass of water. Kent may claims not be a poet but I still consider her writing a kind of word sorcery.
Favorite line:
“I’m hopeless and I’m a romantic. I’m a masochist. I’m addicted to less. I’m addicted to the pain. I’m addicted to him.”
To end, I highly recommend reading Dreams of 18. It’s a book about two people reclaiming something taken from them; their safety, their dreams, and needs and love because age is really just a number. So while Violet and Graham go looking for their souls in the lines of each other’s bodies, you might find a little missing part of your own right there with them. I sure did.
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Well done Saffron A. Kent this book was everything that I was expecting. I wanted to get the story from this shy girl named Violet who we first met in the book "Medicine Man" when she was with Willow and the rest of the girls at Heartstone Mental Hospital. Violet was this shy girl who though she was invisible to the world, who never tough people understand her, who never felt loved by her family. Everything change for her on her sixteen birthday when she saw for the first time her strawberry man (aka Mr. Edwards, aka the beast, aka her forbidden crush). She found a best friend in Mr. Edward's son and she didn't feel that lonely anymore. But two years later she makes a mistake that costed Mr. Edwards everything making him leave. Saffron always bring us the best taboo stories and this forbidden romance between Mr. Edwards and Violet (aka jailbait, aka princess but prefers Diva)its not different. My hearth really goes for Mr. Edwards because he wants to denied the attraction that he feels for Violet, he tries so hard that he becomes this monster, this ugly soul that its waisting his life away, that in reality blames himself for everything that happened. 9but of this Violet has no idea). So there is a lot of angst , lots of moments where I felt so many emotions but at the same time Saffron always makes me understand a little better how people with mental illnesses go through life. Violet and Graham become alive and visible to each other, their connection its undeniable don't matter the age gap difference , no matter what society thinks of them because really who are we to judge? . <"First of all, age is just a number. You're not what your age is. You are what you've gone through. Mark Twain said that age is just mind over matter."
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