“One proton of faith, three electrons of humility, a neutron of compassion and a bond of honesty. … that … is the molecular structure of love.”
Menna van Praag “The Dress Shop of Dreams”
As that of a physicist and especially as a solid-state physicist, who has ponded upon and worked a lot with atomic structure, my heart melted when I read this in the latest book by my dear friend and writing teacher, Menna van Praag.
I fell in love with her writing before meeting her personally and then this feeling appeared also toward her when I got to know her as a friend and my writing mentor.
What I loved about this book is how magical everything appears in this book, especially those things that many would not think magical, as numbers, molecules, and labs. Even if the latter have been seemingly portrayed as clean and too well organized as in the protagonist’s life, there is quite a lot of magic in many of these scenes, especially with her scientist parents.
The actual magic, which we don’t meet in our daily lives, like 3D-movies of books when somebody reads them to us, or the dresses performing magic, becomes a very organic part of the whole world in this book, and actually as I write these words now I start to believe that with a little bit of faith the 3D-book-movies and magical dresses could be possible in our world too.
This is what I like about Menna’s books: they show us human fears and very different ways they take us, but they show us also that we have all the ability we need to find our magical ways. And whatever the chapter of the book, whether it is a love scene or a suspense piece or a slice of mystery, all of them wrapped me up in a feeling of warmth and pleasure. And utter curiosity what would happen next.
I am very much glad that there are more books to come from this wonderful writer’s pen.
More on the author and the book can be found at: