Book Beginnings on Fridays is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader. A couple of Fridays a month, I will share the first sentence (or so) of the book I am currently reading, along with my initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

I am more than halfway through Loving Mr. Daniels, and have experienced more emotions from this book, than I have of any book so far this year….

Loving Mr. Daniels by Brittainy C. Cherry

To Whom it May Concern,

It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates.

When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn’t plan to stumble into Joe’s bar and have Daniel’s music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss.

When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons.

Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.

It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.

It was ours.

And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for loving Mr. Daniels.

-Ashlyn Jennings

**********

Chapter 1 (Ashlyn) Present Day

Death isn’t frightening, it isn’t a curse. 

I just f*cking wish that it would’ve taken me first.

-Romeo’s Curse

I sat on the pew in the far back. I hated funerals, but then again, I believed it would be weird if I loved them. I wondered if there were people who did love those kinds of things. People who showed up just to breathe in all of the sadness as a sick form of entertainment. You know what they say–you can’t spell funeral without fun.

My thoughts are all over the place, probably because my emotions are as well. You will see me talk about this book again. You will see this book on multiple best of lists at the end of the year. You will need a box of tissues to get through it. If you loved Sea of Tranquility, We are the Goldens, and maybe even Weight of Words, you will love this book.

Katiebird