The Magic of Ordinary Days: A Novel

I love this book. I have read it twice and it will be one I read over and over. The characters are tangible and likable. Ray will steal your heart. It is a beautiful love story threaded with WWII history. The ending is well worth the read. The movie by Hallmark is wonderful, but couldn't touch the tenderness, pain, and love found in the novel. The plot consists of straddling WW II, prejudice, and an unwed mother-to-be who marries, out of convenience, an uneducated farmer. She is a highly educated young lady which is rare for that time. She finds herself desolate on a 200 acre farm with no neighbors, pining for the soldier that abandoned her and the mother she recently lost. I think it is mostly a story about the healing power of love. It is not high literature, it is not even well-known, but It is one of the most immaculate examples of steadiness and control over a plot I have ever read; akin to Kazuo Ishiguro. I highly recommend this book. It is a great read for a book club as it encompasses literary finesse as well as I great plot.

I was so excited to receive this in the mail. I love how respectful the author treated this slow burning love story and giving the characters such dignity. I like the nod to history, but how I wish there was a lot less of their story line and more of the main characters growth and details. Maybe that's just the romantic in me. However, I would likely re-read this in the next few months. It's so good I couldn't put it down and finished it in less than a day!

I saw from reading some reviews that many did not like the ending. I did. It is our history and you cannot sugar coat it. But you can learn from it. We no longer put people in internment camps because of their race. FDR did it because of fear and pressure. We continue to grow as a human race, and hopefully for the better. I can say that I did not know that we also kept Nazi prisoners on American soil, so that was new to know and now I wish to know more about how and why we did. This book has some great character studies and I just loved it. I could definitely relate to what life is like out in the country versus the city. The movie was so good that I just had to buy the book--glad I did!

I got this book because I enjoy the movie of the same title. Yes, the book is much better but this does not detract from my appreciation of the movie. I sincerely appreciate how the author put so much thought into the development of her characters. Hearing the story as told from Livy made it so much more real to me. A lonely young woman who sees herself as a doormat vives herself to a stranger in the hope of a future of love to only find herself as the product of a one-night-stand, and is now with child. The oldest sister, an independent graduate student, forced into a marriage with a farmer who is a complete stranger to her. I understand her bitterness and resentment. I also understand her self loathing and her looking at the baby as a mistake. The man she is now married to, whom she doesn't love and has no intention of doing so. His unconditional love of her and her child is a lesson to my heart of what love can be. I equate this to my Lord's unconditional love of me. Livy grows to genuinely love him. When she attests of her love of Ray to the reverend,and Ray's sister Martha, it also attested of her self forgiveness and of his taking her ashes of her dreams of what might have been and them turning them into something so precious and rare. Thank you Ms. Creel for such a lovely story.

I should say at the outset that the Hallmark movie based on this book is not s typical Hallmark movie. It has more depth—probably because of the book. I have loved the Hallmark movie for years, so the last time I watched it, I decided to read the book (after all, the book is ALWAYS better). What had drawn me to the movie/book was the characters; the simple, yet magical, story; and the actors (great casting). Most of the book was as good as (albeit slightly different from) the movie. It filled in a lot of the background, and I liked the historical details. But the ending was MUCH different in ways I found significant. I only gave the book three stars because I thought the book ending was HORRIBLE. At the core of it was a tragedy, with racist elements (and perhaps even elements of mysogyny and paternalism) that disrespected all the characters, but esp. the three main female characters. One could say Hallmark altered the ending to give it the typical rosey Hallmark ending. However, I think the Hallmark movie fixed a problem with the book, was more true to the characters, AND was more respectful not only of the characters, but also of the love story at its core. When I got to the part of the book where it became clear that tragedy was going to be unavoidable, I was so disappointed I could hardly read on. But I did. The book is in first person narrative, and the last few paragraphs are more true to the story, and satisfying. HOWEVER, the last paragraph is an abomination and seems tacked on. It could easily be deleted.

An excellent read. It is different than the Hallmark adaptation, though. I like historical fiction and including archeology is really cool. A good window into the WW2 homefront.

I watched its movie on YouTube. Not my first choice for whatever reason. Again it kept popping up. I watched it twice. I can't get enough of them. I wish there was more to it after the happy ending. Then I bought the book. Its price is out of my comfort zone for an ebook but I did not care. I read every single words. Movie a bit different. The movie Director sure knew how to pick up Actors. How did they know? How did they decide who's who to make that wonderful couple. I was so touched when Livvy realised that Ray is "the one" and when she let him in towards the end.

Una historia de amor hermosa.

Livre plutôt facile à lire le niveau d'anglais n'est pas très compliqué. Histoire sympathique, différent du film mais les 2 sont très bien.

I loved this novel. It's very much recommended.

Por casualidad vi la película en versión original en YouTube y descubrí que estaba basada en este libro. Tenía ganas de leer un libro en inglés y decidí pedirlo. El libro está muy bien, se entiende bien, es ameno y te deja con buena sensación después de terminarlo. Hay diferencias entre la película y el libro y aunque ambos están muy bien, yo me quedo con el libro.