Reviewed by Carissa

TITLE:  From This Window

SERIES:  2013 Advent Calendar – Heartwarming

AUTHOR:  Diana Jean

PUBLISHER:  Dreamspinner

LENGTH:  41 pages

BLURB:  Agoraphobic Lucas Davidson spends his days watching people from his window, taking detailed notes of what he thinks their lives are like. Occasionally he’ll go downstairs to the Da Vinci Café and fulfill his quota for human contact. That’s where part-time clerk Jeremy Roberts meets him. Lucas intrigues him, so Jeremy coerces him into attending a Christmas Eve party, and one night of fun turns in to a morning of choices. Can Lucas accept the colorful world Jeremy shows him, or do his introverted issues run too deep for anyone to help him?

REVIEW:  

“Sometimes you wake up and think the effort it takes to get out of bed is impossible.  Or the effort to get into the car, drive to work, and be there for hours.  And you find out that the effort of doing anything is so great that you…just do nothing.  There is no reason for it, no definable reason.  It just is.”

Living life has become a rather foreign concept to Lucas Davidson.  Watching it, watching others spend their lives in pointless pursuits and mindless strivings is all Lucas can really understand now.  He used to be like them, once, but not anymore.  Now he watches the others–the boring, predictable others–and thinks that he’ll never be one of them again.  Not that he wants to be.  So he watches, and studies, and records it all in his journals–because that is simply what he does now.  Now that he is no longer one of them.  And when the watching becomes too lonely, he goes downstairs, to the cafe below his apartment, and sits among them.  And watches.  And studies.  And records in his journal.  Alone.

Until one day Jeremy Roberts invites him to his Christmas party, and refuses to take no for an answer.  Until he finds himself dragged across the hall to the party when he has no intentions of going.  He is totally alone, in a world of watching and waiting, until Jeremy reaches out and touches him.  But Lucas doesn’t know if he can live in the world of touching and living, not when watching is all he really knows.

Ok, I’ll admit it, I kind of fell in love with Lucas with those three little words: “Lucas hated people.”  Not the most sterling recommendation about my character, but there is a lot about Lucas that I understand.  That I am.  People confuse me, in all their wanting and connecting–and that annoying way them seem to be able to form thoughts into coherent ideas and speak them so that others can understand them, and laugh, and get each other.  I like silence, and my room, and watching other people move about like pieces in a game I both don’t understand and find completely pointless.  There is, I think, a lot of Lucas in me.  Well, except that I adore Christmas.  But no one is perfect.

There is just something about the way Lucas is, how he is written, that I just adore.  The standoffish nature, the quirky quips, the pure dread of being dragged into a social situation–I understand it quite intimately.  And it was wonderful to come across a character that is so me.  Yet, so not me, as well.  His longing and dislike of that longing struck a chord with me.  For a bit I was Lucas, and as Lucas I was able to grow a little bit stronger, and little bit more reckless.   A tad bit more fun.  It is, in essence, the core of what I want a story to do.  And it did it beautifully.

Jeremy and Lucas are so very different, but I think that is good.  Lucas needs someone to touch, to bring the world to life.  Jeremy does that for him.  And Jeremy, well I don’t know much about him since this was all from Lucas’s point of view, but I think Lucas is a bit of mystery that Jeremy wants to solve–every day, for as long as humanly possible.  I won’t say he wants to do it forever, because this story is just the first few pages of their adventure together, but there is something between them that says that this could be a grand happily-ever-after.  Or a fiery disaster.  But either way, I think it would be a brilliant story to read.

I loved this story and am quite happy that I picked it to read.  It makes me happy and a little bit sad, but I think I am also a tiny bit better for having read it.  Life if very rarely more than adequate when it is only viewed through paned-glass.  And even if stepping outside is filled with all sorts of risks like frostbite and being ran over and–god help me–human interaction, I think it just might be worth it to find a story worth living.  In the meantime, this is a great story to tide you over till the temperature is no longer in danger of costing you several of your more needed bits and pieces.

Carissa’s Rating:  

BUY LINKS: Dreamspinner  ::   Amazon  ::   ARe  

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ADVENT CALENDER EVENT

Dreamspinner Press and The Blog of Sid Love bring to you an opportunity where you get to win a free set of DSP’s “Heartwarming” Advent Calender 2013. Yes! The full set with 31 stories including contributions from authors like Andrew Grey, Cardeno C., Grace R. Duncan, and many more…

If you wish to enter yourself into this contest, all you have to do is comment on every advent event post we make each day till the end of this month. Look out for titles with “Advent Calender Event” mentioned in them (such as this one) and the posts will be reviews on each and every story from this anthology.

The contest will end on 1st January, 2014 and the winners will be announced on the 2nd of January.

So, good luck to you all and Happy Holidays!