A review by meagan_louise
To Selena, With Love by Chris Pérez
5.0
I heard about the book when it was released last year and was interested in reading it. But it wasn't till last week when my husband and I randomly watched "Selena" did I actively want to read it, so I did something I rarely do...I ordered it online at whatever price it was set at. Luckily, Amazon apparently lost some lawsuit and I got this and two other books released in the last year for less than $5.00. WIN!
Selena Quintinilla Perez died when I was 11 years old. I had no idea who she was till the movie "Selena" came out, and then it was a little while later I learned that it was a true story. The movie is an all time favorite of mine and the real Selena has been of interest to me since with her single "Dreaming of You" being a classic song that I will forever associate with those trying times of being a preteen girl being in love.
Chris Perez was always a bit of a mystery, with one Jon Seda's interpretation of him all what I had to go by. He never really spoke about Selena or their time together in any real detail from what I gathered and I figured he never would. Wanting to keep his time with her and their experiences together to himself is as understandable as what he eventually did with writing this book.
"To Selena, With Love" is an intimate portrait of a man insanely and desperately in love with his wife. Much like the movie, it reads like a fairy tale in the best sense of the phrase, with their "happily ever after" being the best part of their romance. But he doesn't paint themselves as a couple or them as individuals as one note...Selena was as moody as she was vivacious, as stressed as she was carefree, and as stubborn as she was hardworking. Chris Perez loved all the aspects of his wife and even almost 20 years later, it really shows.
I always had the sense that the loss Chris Perez felt had never truly healed and in many ways that is still true, even though he has moved on and lived his life the way Selena would have wanted him to.
How Selena died and the events leading up to it are wide spread news. There is nothing new about that in here but what really sticks out is Chris's last memory of Selena alive, the morning she went to meet Yolanda. It's written so vividly (like most of the book) that it almost feels like it's the readers memory, it's so visible in the minds eye. Its an image he's had with him for so long, and sharing that with her fans is more than a treat, it feels like a privilege.
I burned through this in less than a day, and by the time I read the last heart twisting sentence, I was wrapped in the melancholy I always feel when I realize her story is over. But this was a good book for anyone who was a fan.
Selena Quintinilla Perez died when I was 11 years old. I had no idea who she was till the movie "Selena" came out, and then it was a little while later I learned that it was a true story. The movie is an all time favorite of mine and the real Selena has been of interest to me since with her single "Dreaming of You" being a classic song that I will forever associate with those trying times of being a preteen girl being in love.
Chris Perez was always a bit of a mystery, with one Jon Seda's interpretation of him all what I had to go by. He never really spoke about Selena or their time together in any real detail from what I gathered and I figured he never would. Wanting to keep his time with her and their experiences together to himself is as understandable as what he eventually did with writing this book.
"To Selena, With Love" is an intimate portrait of a man insanely and desperately in love with his wife. Much like the movie, it reads like a fairy tale in the best sense of the phrase, with their "happily ever after" being the best part of their romance. But he doesn't paint themselves as a couple or them as individuals as one note...Selena was as moody as she was vivacious, as stressed as she was carefree, and as stubborn as she was hardworking. Chris Perez loved all the aspects of his wife and even almost 20 years later, it really shows.
I always had the sense that the loss Chris Perez felt had never truly healed and in many ways that is still true, even though he has moved on and lived his life the way Selena would have wanted him to.
How Selena died and the events leading up to it are wide spread news. There is nothing new about that in here but what really sticks out is Chris's last memory of Selena alive, the morning she went to meet Yolanda. It's written so vividly (like most of the book) that it almost feels like it's the readers memory, it's so visible in the minds eye. Its an image he's had with him for so long, and sharing that with her fans is more than a treat, it feels like a privilege.
I burned through this in less than a day, and by the time I read the last heart twisting sentence, I was wrapped in the melancholy I always feel when I realize her story is over. But this was a good book for anyone who was a fan.