Title: The Lover’s Dictionary
Author: David Levithan
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books
ISBN: 978-0-374-19368-3
Genre: Literary Fiction
PP: 224 pages
Price: $18.00
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 5/5
We all fall in love – some or the other time. We all have fallen in love – some or the other time, and as coincidental it may seem – we all speak the same language of love when we meet. 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. Besides the happy times and the good times that the narrator talks about in his story there’s also the complications, the hard times and the heartbreaking episodes that you get sometimes from having a long term relationship.
This will be one of those books that I can pick out of my shelf, flip through any page and just read an entry when I need some romance, or just when I want something to cheer me up. The book is only about 200 pages long and a few of the pages only have one sentence but the meaning can be so much bigger than that and it might even take you a little longer to flip the page just so you can savor and digest what you just read. It really makes you think. It was like a really expensive and delicious piece of chocolate, you can’t rush it, you want to taste every bite. If you want a realistic love story, one that is very unique and beautifully written, I truly recommend The Lover’s Dictionary.
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