Joy in the Morning

By Betty Smith

Annie and Carl are young and in love and they want to get married. Never mind that neither of their families are in favor of it. Never mind that Carl is still in school and that Annie never even graduated from high school. When Annie turns eighteen, she leaves her home in Brooklyn and joins Carl at the university in the Midwest were he is studying and they are shortly married by a justice of the peace. And so the fun begins.
This is a year in the life of a struggling yet eager young couple, determined to be adults and live their lives on their own terms. Carl struggles to support his young and soon pregnant wife and still stay in school. Annie struggles to maintain a nice home for her husband and to prepare for the birth of their first child while trying to develop her budding talent as a writer. They have a lot of hard times, a few quarrels and misunderstandings, but through it all they manage to stay in love and adapt to changing circumstances and with a little luck and the help of their friends it will all work out.

This was a pretty good story. Most romances end with the couple coming together but that is where this one begins. Reading about how she and Carl managed to cope with and overcome adversity was interesting and brought back memories of what it was like to be a young married couple. At times, Annie's ignorance and naivety grew tiresome to read about. Towards the end of the story it felt like she was never going to manage to have that baby, that part dragged on way too long. Then after the baby comes, I guess the author got tired of the story because she sums up the last year before Carl graduates in just two brief chapters and then they get to go on to have their happily-ever-after. But even with these quibbles, I enjoyed the story of Annie and Carl.