If You Love Me... Surprise Me

As I finished Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella and opened my editor to write this, the first thing that came to mind was, “Sophie Kinsella has done it again!” Which would make perfect sense if this book had just been released and not back in 2018. But oh my, what a book. What a boooook!!!

I loved it so much that last night, fully prepped for bed and promising myself I would read just one chapter, I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed an hour later, still reading, wide awake, and plagued by the question, “What’s going to happen next?” And when I finally found out, the relief felt almost like that intense, burning release after holding in your pee for far too long. Crude comparison? I know. But that was truly how I felt.

Growing up, I read as many Sophie Kinsella books as I could download via the now-extinct Waptrick and Mobile9. Hearing about her demise last year made me deeply nostalgic. With Vinted’s free book delivery this month (January), I suddenly found myself buying more books than I could count. Actually, I can count them. It’s twelve now, with eight authored by Sophie. But still, I went from zero to eight. Come on!!

So, what do I think of Surprise Me?

The beginning? Hooking. Simple. The end? A fantastic read.

I started reading it on the train to work, and I remember stopping mid-page and staring out at the greenhouses and countryside as the train rushed through them, deep in thought about marriage.

I suppose I’ve reached that age where even the most liberal people I know have started asking me about marriage. Probing gently, trying to gauge my intentions, sometimes ready to encourage or rebuke me depending on my answer. I’ve also caught myself asking my friends when they plan to get married, mainly because it sounds like a responsible adult question. Lol.

Reading about Sylvie and Dan spiraling at the thought of being married for 68 years was kinda fascinating. Imagine someone being married to you for 68 years. Are you even good, kind, and amazing enough to be married to for that long?

And assuming, by some stroke of luck, that you are not a terrible person and you are at least a 6/10 on the marriage-material scale, imagine being married to someone else for 70 years. People do it. People have done it. But really, really imagine it.

You might argue that asking these questions means you do not love your partner enough. But “forever” is quite a laden word that I’ve only just realized I had never really paid much thought to it. It’s a bit like muscle memory. You know your food goes into your mouth and not your nose. You know what the word means, but do you really, really understand what it means, especially in contexts like this?

So when people say things like “till death do us part” and “forever and ever,” do they ever actually pause to think about it? Fifty years? Eighty years? Eighty fucking years with this person?!

This is, of course, assuming everything works out, you live to be a hundred, and the world does not end. And if you get to spend all those years with someone, as Dan asks, then why do people marry so early? I have so many arguments and counterarguments here, but I’ll leave this open-ended for now.

By the way, these are just questions, not declarations of where I stand. Because that is what reading does. You ask questions, examine your ideologies, agree, disagree, learn, see, and then move on.

So, after holding an internal moot court with myself and my inner minions, we did the next sensible thing. We kept reading.

As we read later in the book, the years were not the problem. The assumed number of years they had together was a red herring, and creating “surprises” was not the solution either. As I like to say, cutting off the head is never the solution to a headache.

I also realized that if you are always looking for problems, it becomes almost impossible to see the good. Maybe 68 years is long. Perhaps it isn’t. But the years don’t have to be the problem. Perhaps they are an opportunity. At the end of life, you might realize that 68 years is actually relatively short in comparison to the nothingness that may exist after.

And who said there are only so many new things to do? There are always more mountains to climb.

All in all, this was a lovely story. You see what assumptions can do to people and to relationships. You see those who believe they have all the time in the world together, and others who cannot believe how little time they have left, the irony of life at its finest.

You see the impact of different parenting techniques and the mistakes parents make. You see how secrets shape, strain, and sometimes damage relationships.

And you also come to realize that you absolutely could be married to one person for 120 years, and it would not be terrible. Or it could be. You see how you can spend an entire lifetime with someone and still not fully know them or what they are capable of. That, in itself, is intriguing. Because you would think that 70 years is enough time to know someone, and yet, you can always still be surprised.

Well, if nothing, this book is a reminder that Sophie Kinsella will be missed. Always!