My Two and Only by Carla Malden
What's It About?
After Charlotte’s husband Paul died, her life was never the same. Yet Charlotte remains the same: mother, daughter, friend, interior designer… and, although single… wife. Until she meets Brian, and he asks her to marry him.They say it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Charlotte has already lost her one and only, so will she be able to find love again? My Two and Only (Rare Bird Books) by Carla Malden is a story about love, loss and coming to terms with a new version of yourself while still clinging to the past. It is about honoring the memory of the good times while finding a way to move forward, towards your own future.
Moving Forward and Honoring Grief
Charlotte Most is known as a mother, daughter, friend, interior designer — and widow. Charlotte knows who she is and is comfortable in her new normal, though life as a widow was difficult to settle into. She finally thinks she’s gotten the hang of it, and has even been seeing someone new. That’s all thrown out the window when Brian, her boyfriend, nervously rambles on about how afraid he was trying to figure out her ring size until he finally says, “Will you marry me?”
From that moment on, we begin our journey into one of the biggest questions on Charlotte’s mind: Does she want to get married again? Of course, she loves Brian, but who would she be if she wasn’t Paul’s widow? How can she become Brian’s wife, when she still thinks of herself as Paul’s?
At her core, Charlotte is a woman that has trapped herself in grief and survivor’s guilt and doesn’t believe that she should live happily ever after. “I’ve had my one and only … Why should I deserve [another] … ?” Feeling guilty for moving on, Charlotte grapples with moving out of her own comfort zone and chasing her own happily ever after — even if it isn’t with Paul like she imagined.
What Charlotte’s journey teaches us, is that moving on is not a betrayal to the ones you have lost. Rather, for Charlotte, finding new love is part of honoring her late husband, not letting her life be lived in grief and sadness. She can still mourn him every day, but she can move forward and live a fulfilling life alongside her grief. The personal growth Charlotte made throughout the book is finally put to the test when filling out paperwork. She is presented with two blank boxes: Widowed and Married. Who’s to say she can’t check both? It was such a touching moment and solidified her newfound confidence in herself.
Touching Journey of Healing and Finding Love
Carla Malden wrote a story that has similarities to her real life, she said that she shared in Charlotte’s struggles to find happiness after heartbreak and that truly shines when reading this book. My Two and Only is so unique in the way different plots, scenes, and even periods of time are weaved together ultimately creating a witty, charming, and touching book.
Reading along as Charlotte learns to forgive herself, move on, and open herself up to love and all the changes that come with it, feels like such a privilege. Malden did a fantastic job at keeping these characters real and authentic. She explores the question that the title asks (and answers): Do we only get one “one and only”? For Charlotte, the journey to answering it is long and complicated, but no matter what, there is joy, grief, laughter, tears — and most importantly, love — along the way.
About Carla Malden:
Raised in Los Angeles, Carla Malden began her career working in motion picture production and development before becoming a screenwriter. Along with her father, Academy Award-winning actor Karl Malden, she co-authored his critically acclaimed memoir When Do I Start? More recently, Malden published Afterimage: A Brokenhearted Memoir Of A Charmed Life, her own fiercely personal account of battling the before and surviving the after of losing her first husband to cancer. Afterimage is a journey through grief to gratitude that alerts an entire generation: this is not your mother’s widowhood.
