Book Reviews: The Story of Us by Melissa Singleton

Happy Friday, everyone! I want to start the weekend off with an easier read, only about 174 pages and very colloquial in its voice. I feel I should warn readers that there are Christian verses and references to worshipping the Christian God throughout the book, but those are not by any means the main drive of the book, so non-Christians should enjoy this book unless they really want to avoid Christianity in their reading. The book I’m reviewing in this post is The Story of Us: The Life and Times of Mel and Ray by Melissa Singleton.

Every life has its challenges. We fall in love and we fall out of love, only to fall back in love somewhere down the road; we gain loved ones and we lose them; we succeed and we fail; mostly, though, we learn and grow as people, so long as we don’t let our trial and tribulations to drag us down into the abyss. Melissa Singleton’s The Story of Us follows such an ordinary (and non-narrative) story of a couple who are very much in love.

Singleton takes readers through her life journey with Ray from the day of her birth to the very day she wrote this book. She speaks of falling in love with Ray, of separating, of reuniting, of starting businesses and a family, and watching loved ones, one by one, join and leave this world. While told in no particular order other than chronological (and even that form of organization falls to the wayside after a while), each of the mini-stories are tired together by Singleton, her husband, their love for each other, and their ability to learn from their mistakes (no matter how many times those mistakes had to be made). The result is a sweet story of two lives intertwined, for better or for worse—although more often for the better.

I want to begin by saying that Singleton’s narrative voice is very conversational and very Southern. I say this as a term of endearment; my mother’s mother’s side of the family is Southern, and so I cannot help but imagine one of them telling these sorts of stories with this sort of voice. (I can even hear my very Californian mother in this narration, bless her heart!) It’s that feel of an older family member sitting you down and telling you every family story there is to hear, whether you want to listen or not and whether you’ve heard them a million times or not. Singleton even has some “what’s going on with people nowadays” and “back in my day” moments that brought a roll to my eyes and a smirk to my lips.

Needless to say, this narrative voice sucked me in fairly easily, even without a proper introduction. One would have been nice, of course, to understand what to expect in the story before starting to talk about Melissa’s and Ray’s childhoods. Regardless, I was oddly OK with the seeming aimlessness of the book, of just reading it for the sake of reading someone else’s life story.

Unfortunately, the narrative voice got a little too preachy towards the end of the book for me. That’s not to say I’m uncomfortable with Christian books. Hey, you’ve seen some of the books I’ve reviewed before, I don’t shy away from a book just because of the religion discussed in it. (I’m a fairly open-minded Agnostic.) No, my problem was more with how heavy the religious part of the voice became so swiftly, namely in the second half of the book. Perhaps if the religious presence had been more prominent in the earlier chapters, the writing would have felt more balanced; as it is, without any real “epiphany” which would explain the sudden shift, I became annoyed by the imbalance.

I am also not a fan of how often Singleton uses “LOL”. I enjoy the Southern colloquial style of her storytelling, but the LOLs grew tedious. I felt as though I were reading a teenager’s (or even a young adult’s) texts or Facebook status. I understand it’s part of her voice, but it sounds immature and, quite literally, like laughing at her own jokes. That’s different from when she’s actually talking about laughing at what she’s writing; that’s funny in a breaking-the-fourth-wall kind of way, whereas LOL is just too informal even for an informal narrator.

Fortunately, I think that the stories themselves and the people involved salvage the book from any of these minor issues I’ve mentioned. They are all so real, and more so than just knowing that this is autobiographical. I felt as though I could meet any of these people just walking down the street (my mom could see Singleton’s stories and raise her five). I also related very well to Melissa and Ray, seeing a bit of myself in each of them as well as their family and friends. (I’ll join you in Unproductive Anonymous, Melissa!)

Frankly, despite it being only 26 pages shy of 200 and all the shiz I normally have to do, I read this book in about a day. It’s a fun read, although sometimes emotional as Singleton discusses various deaths in their families. I felt as though I were just having a heart-to-heart conversation with this woman, and I so desperately felt the urge to tell her some of my family stories as well. Thus is the magic of informal storytelling.

Towards the end of the book, Singleton mentions that the reader may have found some spelling or grammatical errors. She also says that there are a lot fewer than when she started and that she left some purposefully as that is how they are remembered. Still, I found many proofreading errors that could not be brushed off to that style choice. Many times there were apostrophes missing from possessives, i.e. “Rays” instead of “Ray’s”, and the use of “its” when “it’s” should be there. I also noticed some odd spacing issues in my Kindle eBook, mostly that there were spaces missing between some words and an odd extra space after the first letter of the first word in a chapter. Whether those are proofreading errors or something weird going on with Kindle, I don’t know. Nevertheless, I think that the book could do with one more look-over to catch mistakes such as those I mentioned above.

Overall, The Story of Us by Melissa Singleton is a sweet, cute story of a couple growing old and growing up together. It’s a glimpse into American life over several decades, the tale of hard workers pulling themselves up by their bootstraps not to become millionaires but to make something they can be proud of. If you’re looking for a clear-cut plot or spectacular drama and character growth, this book might not be for you. However, if you’re looking for a lighthearted read about real people you can relate to, you’ll definitely want to check it out.

You can buy The Story of Us by Melissa Singleton as an eBook on Amazon.

Know of a book I should read? Want your work reviewed on this blog? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or message me on Fiverr and we can arrange something.