The Blue Car: A Trilogy by Frederick Bruce is a fiction collection of three short stories that interconnect in various ways. In the first story, Lori feels unfulfilled working for an insurance broker, despite earning a good salary. She dreams of being a masseuse and decides to change careers. After going through training, Lori starts her own company as a licensed massage therapist, scaling back on her lifestyle to achieve her goals. It’s an uphill battle as money is tight and it’s difficult to build up a client base. There is also a side plot about one of Lori’s clients that has an impact on her future. “Jason’s Story” (each story’s title includes the name of the character) focuses on a young attorney’s lifelong desire to be a history teacher. Jason became a lawyer at his father’s urging since childhood, but his real passion is teaching. A thorny issue is that his fiancé’s father is a partner in the firm Jason works for; in addition, Jason is hesitant to disappoint his own father. In “Sara’s Story,” a woman is fired after a client makes sexual advances and then tells a different tale to the owner of the company. …show more content…
Jason is particularly likable and relatable as a person who is strongly encouraged by his father to become an attorney. It’s fairly common that parents will steer their children toward certain goals, such as specific colleges or careers. While the plot veered off track a bit with long passages about the legal profession, this information was still interesting. I liked the way the stories are intertwined through the characters’ interactions and common themes. There is also a creative way Lori’s car is linked to the characters in the rest of the