Where I got it: Library
Rating: 5 stars
Cover Rating: 5 stars (Perfect)
Genre: Adult/but definitely has YA appeal
Publication Date: January 4, 2011
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Page Count: 211 p.
How can you write about love? There are many different kinds of love, as well as different emotions for each stage of love. Clearly using a dictionary of sorts is the easiest. Or is it? This is a story about glimpses into the world of love. Small fragments that help make up the big picture. A story about one couple in one relationship and what love meant to them at different points in time.
This was a fantastic read. Heather O'Neill is quoted on the back of this book saying: "...an addictive and wildly fun read." I must disagree with the thought of this being fun. It was very enjoyable, but equally heartbreaking. I found very little fun about this save for the format of the story. If you have ever been in a relationship you should read this novel. It was so well-written(as one has come to expect from David Levithan). I love how the narrator is a man, but the lover is not ever identified as male of female. I think it helps you to see the relationship in two different worlds, or in whichever you can comprehend. I also loved the repetition that slowly revealed parts of the story further. This was a completely fantastic novel and a very fast read. You should buy it, because you will want to pick it up again and again.
First Line:
"aberrant, adj.
'I don't normally do this kind of thing,' you said."
Favorite Line:
"But in a perverse way, I was relieved that you were the one who made the mistake."
How can you write about love? There are many different kinds of love, as well as different emotions for each stage of love. Clearly using a dictionary of sorts is the easiest. Or is it? This is a story about glimpses into the world of love. Small fragments that help make up the big picture. A story about one couple in one relationship and what love meant to them at different points in time.
This was a fantastic read. Heather O'Neill is quoted on the back of this book saying: "...an addictive and wildly fun read." I must disagree with the thought of this being fun. It was very enjoyable, but equally heartbreaking. I found very little fun about this save for the format of the story. If you have ever been in a relationship you should read this novel. It was so well-written(as one has come to expect from David Levithan). I love how the narrator is a man, but the lover is not ever identified as male of female. I think it helps you to see the relationship in two different worlds, or in whichever you can comprehend. I also loved the repetition that slowly revealed parts of the story further. This was a completely fantastic novel and a very fast read. You should buy it, because you will want to pick it up again and again.
First Line:
"aberrant, adj.
'I don't normally do this kind of thing,' you said."
Favorite Line:
"But in a perverse way, I was relieved that you were the one who made the mistake."
David Levithan is amazing. Great review--I can't wait to read this one!
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard of this book before, but it looks really good. Thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to read your review...I just decided last night that I am going to give this book away later this month--All without having read it. But, I've read enough Levithan that this book is going to be brilliant. Thanks for affirming what I thought to be true!
ReplyDeleteI have this one waiting for me to read. I've heard great things thus far and I go into any David Levithan book pretty much expecting to love it.
ReplyDeleteI loved this one too. It was just so fresh and totally honest. It was heartbreaking but completely romantic all at once. It was so real - perfectly captured all the emotions of a relationship and the relationships that come with a relationship.
ReplyDeleteI was under the impression that the lover was a woman though - I think in the first few pages he alludes to her being pregnant.... he aks "who's the father?" I believe. But you're right - the lack of description of the lover just really made it all that more vibrant. The relationship was on display, not the person - which is why it's such a great book.