New Book Alert: The Adventures of George and Mabel: Based on An Almost...Well You Know by Stefanie Hutcheson; The Darling Duo's Third and Final Installment Ends on a Heartwarming, Touching, and Even Tearful Note

 

New Book Alert: The Adventures of George and Mabel: Based on An Almost...Well You Know by Stefanie Hutcheson; The Darling Duo's Third and Final Installment Ends on a Heartwarming, Touching, and Even Tearful Note

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: George and Mabel Harrison are this year's Maggie Elizabeth Harrington. Similar to the protagonist of D.J. Swykert's novels which I reviewed last year, George and Mabel are a couple of characters that I have gotten to know through various stages and have loved them through these stages. I have enjoyed them so much that I am a little tearful reviewing this, their final installment The Adventures of George and Mabel: Based On An Almost..Well You Know. Once again, their author Stefanie Hutcheson gives us a few stories that are not long on plot but are vast in character and charm. The Reader will sigh in delight, smile in pleasure, and finally shed a tear when the book is closed knowing that the journey of the Darling Duo has finally come to a moving and satisfactory end.

Like any well-written character, just when The Reader thinks that they know everything about the Harrison's, Hutcheson throws another bit of information to add to the depths of their personality. We are aware of the Duo's love of music and penchant for quoting song lyrics and know of their travels such as (in this volume) a spontaneous and crowded Labor Day trip to Myrtle Beach. We now learn that Mabel combined her love of music and traveling to collect music boxes. They include ones from Colorado that play "Rocky Mountain High" and "The Song Remembers When," one of LA that plays "LA International," and one of the Golden Gate Bridge that plays "Come Monday." (not "Dock of the Bay"  or "San Francisco, Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair"?). For Mabel's 43rd birthday, George surprises his wife with a music box of the Eiffel Tower that plays "Leaving on a Jet Plane" foreshadowing a bigger surprise: tickets for two to Paris. (Altogether now: Awwww!) 

These additions to their character are not meant to be earth shattering. Instead they are stimple nuanced layers that help The Reader understand them. It's almost like getting into a conversation with George and Mabel and The Reader says to George, "I didn't know you used sleight of hand with a gumball machine ring and a real diamond ring to propose to her." They are the couple that you always learn something new about them

As with the previous volumes we also learn about the Harrisons' friends and family and how their influences shaped George and Mabel into the man and woman that they would later become.  A tender WWII-era love story between George's aunt and uncle foreshadows how important finding that soul mate becomes to George and how he knows when he finds her.

Mabel gets a high school-era tale of peer pressure. When she is involved in a drink driving accident, her popular girl clique abandons her. As an adult, Mabel retains loyalty to the true friends who stuck by her even into adulthood.

Because of this being the last volume, there is a sadness present in this one, over the others. One of the darkest and best stories in all three volumes, serves as a wrap around to this volume by carrying over various alternating chapters with the rest of the text. The reason why the Harrison's never had children is revealed in an emotional story. What could be a life of regret and loneliness becomes a heartwarming story of sacrifice and forgiveness, especially when George has to make the decision to not only save the woman that he loves but the one who nearly causes much destruction in their lives. 

This story and an epilogue set in the near future end things on a tearful, but ultimately uplifting note. To borrow the famous quote that has been roaming the Internet, I don't cry because their story is over, I smile because it happened.