The Breakdown Lane, the Romantic Shoulder of the Road

The Breakdown Lane
Book Cover

I've owned a copy of The Breakdown Lane by Jacquelyn Mitchard for more than ten years, but never got to finish it until now.  Since it was long time ago, I wasn't sure what it was about when I picked it up again and started from the beginning.

Thinking I might shovel it back because it's a story about betrayal and everything nobody wants whatever comes in the package, but surprisingly, it's light to read and it's humorous and hilarious.

Yes, there are those down-and-groaning-and-sinking moments, but mostly are not heavy stuff that could break your heart.

The story is about Julieanna, a part-time advice columnist, who has a lawyer husband Leo/Leon walks out on her and their three children, Gabe, Caro/Cat, Aurora/Rory.  A cheating husband, who isn't happy with their marriage life and thinks that by walking out, he is doing for his children.  He has got a mouth to bend the story.  After he walks out, Julie is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).  She has to deal with the illness and the finance.

Gabe tells his view from his journal, he is my favorite character in the book.  How he sees the whole thing brewing while his mother is still oblivious to it, how he grows up with learning disability, how he handles the situation and helps the family get through.

Caro-or-Cat is just like her parents, brilliant to lead her brother on a Hunting-Down-The-Daddy Adventure, but also has too much of pride to admit like her mother.  It was a mistake to stay with her father and a woman named Joyous who his father has two children with, but she just couldn't say it.

Julie is fortunate to have many good people around her, Cathy and Connie to help out, and her parents-in-law, who are more like her parents.  I wonder when they are in the court, where Gabe senior and Hannah sit with, their son or daughter-in-law?

But Matt, he is like the prince riding on white horse, and he does own horses.  He is just too convenient to be believable, who has crush on Julie when they are at grade school, short, but turn out to be tall and a rich doctor.

Money, you have got to love it when you have it, and hate it when you don't.  They get married in six months in Las Vegas, I'm not so sure about that wedding arrangement, kind of cheap, not in monetary term.  Everything seems to work out from that point on, happy ending like a fairy tale.

I've been thinking I got the "Breakdown Lane" all wrong, I thought it is meant for Julie, but it might just Leo, who just stops by that yellow sign and decides to have babies with any young woman he finds, because he thinks his family/life is in trouble.