DON’T MAKE A SCENE
VALERIE BLOCK
ISBN: 978-0-345-46185-8
July 2007
Ballatine Books, an imprint of Random House, Inc.
1745 Broadway, 18th Floor New York, NY 10019
Hardcover
$24.95
336 pages
Fiction
Rating: 3 cups

Diane Kurasik is not sure what she is doing with her life. She wants to find a man that does not find her job silly. Working at the movie theatre feeds her love of films and allows her to share her joy with others. Her parents and friends try to be helpful in finding a man for her, but the blind dates they arrange usually end up horribly. If only things would work out in real life the way they do in the movies.

Vladimir Hurtado Padrón is enjoying his life in New York. His family in Cuba wants him to come home. His wife screams at him over the telephone, but he wants to forget all about his life in Cuba. The problem is he does not know how to make that happen since his wife refuses to give him a divorce. Therefore, since the ties he has to Cuba cannot be severed no matter what he does, he has only partially started over.

An eviction notice puts Diane’s world into a tailspin. She needs her own place but discovers that is not an easy problem to solve. Her family offers to let her to stay with them, but she knows that will not work out in the end. Meeting Vladimir seems to be a good solution to her problems, only once she gets to know him, there seems to be more complexity than ever to her life, and she does not want that. Her job as Director of a Greenwich Village Revival House Cinema is not all Diane’s life is supposed to be about. There must have been a lesson she missed along the way and she only hopes she can figure it out soon.

Diane puts all of herself into the movies she adores. In Ms. Block's story, Diane begins to think she is actually living parts of different films. She must bring herself back to reality before she can figure out what she needs to do to have fulfillment in her life. Movies really can take hold of us and challenge the way we think. Embodied with a little humor, this is one story that will change your way of thinking about life. It is all about finding joy and fascination in the least likely places.

Krista
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance
Reviewer for Karen Find Out About New Books