I enjoyed several things about the first half of this book so far. After reading the introduction and first several chapters of this book, I expected Charity's character to act a certain way, and when she didn't, I was surprised. For example, when Charity is described as having a job at the local library, I thought this fit in naturally with her character. Furthermore, I envisioned her as a "dreamer", and pictured her spending her days at the library engulfed in a book, or organizing the shelves, or caring about the state of the building in general. Then I read this passage:
"Today the sense of well-being was intensified by her joy at escaping from the library. She liked well enough to have a friend drop in and talk to her when she was on duty, but she hated to be bothered about books. How could she remember where they were, when they were so seldom asked for?"
While I now understand her disdain for having to spend her days indoors inside a dusty and practically abandoned library, at the time it was surprising to find that she was not enthusiastic about her job. This passage started to clue me in about the other things she was surprisingly un-enthused about. I guess I had a stereotype in my mind of a young girl living in the secluded country, so I'm glad that she doesn't exactly fit into that because I think it makes her character more dimensional.
The second passage I reacted to was when Charity received the letter from Harney after they met to say their goodbyes when he was supposedly leaving town. The letter said:
"I can't go away like this. I am staying for a few days at Creston River. Will you come down and meet me at Creston pool? I will wait for you till evening."
I can't say I was completely and utterly surprised by this secret-letter development. After all, this is obviously a love story where Harney is the object of Charity's affection, and surely he wasn't permanently disappearing from the story less than half way through the book? Although, I didn't expect his "return" to happen so suddenly. I thought he might leave town, and she would mourn him for days, weeks, or months before hearing from him again. It was nice to read the note and feel how Charity must have felt. Especially since the only sign of affection she'd had her whole life besides her interaction with Harney had recently come from Mr. Royall... which would obviously be upsetting. It was interesting to read and feel the contrast in affection that she received from two different relationships with two very different men.
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The first passage you wrote about struck me as well. When you talk about how you imagined her to be ingulfed in a book it reminded me of the Spark's book (author of the notebook) when she lives in a small town and is a librarian and loves book. However, this character was much different from that. Also, I really liked the second passage you talked about. I thought that was a really sweet part of the book that played in the romance narrative's we have been talking about.
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