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 enlarge | Author: Marisa De Los Santos
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $6.90
You Save: $18.05 (72%)
New (44) from $10.57
Avg. Customer Rating:  44 reviews
Sales Rank: 4942
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.6
ISBN: 0061240273
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061240270
ASIN: 0061240273
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Excellent condition--like new! Only read once.
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| Customer Reviews:
Loved this book! May 23, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
If there is one character I will never forget, it is Piper.
This is one of the funniest books ever. This is also one
of the most truthful accounts of life in the suburbs I think
I have ever read.
I have been telling everyone I know about this book. If they
choose not to read it, it is their loss.
 Loved This One May 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Fianlly, a sequel that I liked as much, if not more, than the first. Besides being interesting stories, both both Belong to Me and Love Walked In are very well written. When is Ms. de los Santos coming out with another book??
Heartwarming and True May 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
City dweller Cornelia Brown moves to the burbs with her oncologist husband Teo. They've got a place in what looks like the perfect neighborhood, nice homes with nicely manicured lawns. They can be happy here. However the women who live in suburbia are a bit slow to accept Cornelia. Right from the get go it looks like she might not be one of them when she wears a skimpy black dress to a party of pastel wearing housewives.
The self-anointed, self-appointed Queen-bee Piper at first seems bent on making Cornelia's new life difficult, criticizing her constantly. Piper seems to be a blue-eyed, blonde snob, but we see another side to her when she cares for her terminally ill friend Elizabeth. Things, and people, are not always what they seem at first.
Cornelia also makes friends with Veronica "Lake" Tremain and her exceptional thirteen-year-old son Dev. Dev meets Claire, who I came to know in love in Ms. de los Santo's first book Love Walked In and the relationship that develops is pure poetry as is this whole story. At first Cornelia is excited about the change her life is taking, then it looks like it isn't going to turn out to be everything she thought it was cracked up to be and finally it all turns out better than she ever could have imagined.
I came to this book straight from Love Walked In, but you don't have to. Some how Marisa de los Santos has written a sequel that reads like a stand alone. That's talent, not to meantion the beautifully written heart-warming story that will leaving you hugging yourself and loving these people. I can't recommend this one highly enough.
Reviewed by Vesta Irene, Number One fan of Ken Douglas, writer of Tangerine Dream, Desperation Moon & Running Scared.
 The connections between some of the characters are a bit too contrived; the emotional transformations, sometimes a bit too neat May 13, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
When readers first meet Cornelia Brown, one of three protagonists in Marisa de los Santos's second novel, BELONG TO ME, it seems that her tale will be one of trading an exciting life in the big city for a quiet one in the suburbs. But what unfolds is much more complex and interesting.
Cornelia and her husband Teo have just moved from New York to a sleepy, upper-class Philadelphia suburb, and she's having a bit of trouble fitting in. She misses the pace, creativity and intellectual stimulation of the city and finds little in common with the other women, wives of professional men, she comes into contact with. She's particularly put off by her snotty neighbor, Piper Truitt. But when she meets the eccentric Lake, a single mom also new to town, she has hope that a solid friendship is developing.
Piper is a stereotypical affluent WASP ice princess. But, in de los Santos's able hands, she undergoes a radical yet mostly believable transformation. Piper and her husband Kyle are the alpha couple of the community. Piper is a mother of two, overly concerned with propriety and appearance. She is most at ease when caring for her kids and spending time with her best friend Elizabeth. When Elizabeth is diagnosed with cancer, Piper's world begins to crumble, but through the illness, she rebuilds it into one more genuine and compassionate. As all of her energy goes into caring for Elizabeth, she finds herself distanced from Kyle and her previous petty concerns and becoming close with Cornelia, the neighbor she once dismissed. Elizabeth's illness challenges Piper to change and to learn to accept not only other people but her true self as well.
Meanwhile, young Dev, a kind-hearted genius preoccupied with String Theory and poetry, is faced with his own set of challenges. Recently uprooted from his hometown after a disastrous seventh grade year, he finds himself at a new school in a new town and finally feeling happy and comfortable. Still, he wonders why his mother chose this location. Could it have something to do with the father he never knew? With the help of friends Aiden and Lyssa and first girlfriend Clare, he starts to put together the missing pieces of his life that, while exciting, unravels the carefully woven lies his mother has told him all along.
The stories of Cornelia, Piper and Dev intersect in a number of compelling ways, resulting in some good plot developments. Yet, overall, this is a character-driven novel, and it is the inner lives of the three main figures that make it such a page-turner. Cornelia's portions are written in first-person narration while those of Piper and Dev are told in third person. Her shift in perspectives is successful because the tone and pace remain consistent, and each character has a worthwhile and unique point of view. The secondary characters --- Elizabeth, Dev's friends, Teo and Cornelia's brother --- are all given just the right amount of attention, adding to and not distracting from the story.
Readers may be familiar with Cornelia, Clare and Teo from de los Santos's debut novel, LOVE WALKED IN, but BELONG TO ME stands on its own well. While the connections between some of the characters are a bit too contrived and the emotional transformations are sometimes a bit too neat, the writing is enjoyable enough and the themes of belonging, friendship and love challenged by secrets and change are universal enough to make this a recommendable title.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
I wish I knew Cornelia May 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
You do not want to miss this book. Cornelia and Teo Sandoval are two of the most likeable characters in modern fiction. I wish I knew them in real life. The dialogue is unbeatable, as are the metaphors which provide whimsical insights into family, life, love, loss.
Marisa De Los Santos creates such vivid characters. Reading Dev's chapters (a brillant boy who describes his life through the cosmos and science most of the time) is also so endearing yet so real and adolescent.
The most intricate character is that of Piper who the reader wants to hate, yet is so complex, and so human, that you can't help but love her.
Belong to Me might be accused of being "chick lit". Yet it is so much better written than that genre, so poetic in its word choices and messages that I found myself deeply engrossed throughout.
Love Walked In (Santos first book) is equally as good. Belong to Me can stand alone, but if you have not yet read Love Walked In, you're in for a treat.
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