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A review by aemynadira
Ten Things I've Learnt About Love by Sarah Butler
3.0
This subtle debut novel has a central theme of love and loss within relationships and it's told from the point of view of two characters, Alice and Daniel.
Alice, a wanderer, a backpacker, returns from Mongolia to spend time with her father who is dying of cancer. Her older sisters, Tilly and Cee, are also in the house, and instantly the sibling's dynamics start up again. Tilly is sympathetic and warm towards Alice and bakes when stressed, while Cee, a compulsive list-maker, criticizes and nags her. Alice has always sensed that their father has shared a secret with her sisters that she doesn't know about, felt a twinge of exclusion, but also a sense of being protected from that secret. Their mother died when Alice was young, when picking Alice up from her ballet lessons, an event about which Alice has carried guilt for many years. She still yearns for her ex-boyfriend with whom she broke up because he wouldn't tell his parents about her.
Daniel is a homeless man, a vagrant who searches London for the daughter he has never met, the result of a year-long affair with a married woman. He sees colors in letters and numbers and creates artistic messages out of discarded junk which he leaves on street corners and fences for his daughter. Every year he makes a birthday card for her and posts it, fantasizing that she’ll receive it.
Both characters are compulsive list-makers, always of ten items, this device allows for information to be conveyed to the reader in a quick, easy way, although I sometimes felt it disrupted the flow of the narrative. The outcome is fairly obvious, but the book never descends into sentimentality and concludes in an open-ended fashion that remains open to interpretation by the reader.
10 THINGS I LEARNT ABOUT READING WHILE READING TEN THINGS I’VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE BY SARAH BUTLER
1. I love reading, more for what I can take away from the book than the actual experience.
2. I'll give this book to every reader I know.
3. If I wrote a book, it would have to be like this one.
4. I want a finished copy of this book.
5. Sarah Butler should write something else. I want more.
6. Alice is the most self deprecating character I know.
7. I wouldn't have stayed like Alice did.
8. Daniel needs a bath. I could smell him off the pages.
9. I am grateful for my Dad and I love him.
10. I'll read this again next year.
Alice, a wanderer, a backpacker, returns from Mongolia to spend time with her father who is dying of cancer. Her older sisters, Tilly and Cee, are also in the house, and instantly the sibling's dynamics start up again. Tilly is sympathetic and warm towards Alice and bakes when stressed, while Cee, a compulsive list-maker, criticizes and nags her. Alice has always sensed that their father has shared a secret with her sisters that she doesn't know about, felt a twinge of exclusion, but also a sense of being protected from that secret. Their mother died when Alice was young, when picking Alice up from her ballet lessons, an event about which Alice has carried guilt for many years. She still yearns for her ex-boyfriend with whom she broke up because he wouldn't tell his parents about her.
Daniel is a homeless man, a vagrant who searches London for the daughter he has never met, the result of a year-long affair with a married woman. He sees colors in letters and numbers and creates artistic messages out of discarded junk which he leaves on street corners and fences for his daughter. Every year he makes a birthday card for her and posts it, fantasizing that she’ll receive it.
Both characters are compulsive list-makers, always of ten items, this device allows for information to be conveyed to the reader in a quick, easy way, although I sometimes felt it disrupted the flow of the narrative. The outcome is fairly obvious, but the book never descends into sentimentality and concludes in an open-ended fashion that remains open to interpretation by the reader.
10 THINGS I LEARNT ABOUT READING WHILE READING TEN THINGS I’VE LEARNT ABOUT LOVE BY SARAH BUTLER
1. I love reading, more for what I can take away from the book than the actual experience.
2. I'll give this book to every reader I know.
3. If I wrote a book, it would have to be like this one.
4. I want a finished copy of this book.
5. Sarah Butler should write something else. I want more.
6. Alice is the most self deprecating character I know.
7. I wouldn't have stayed like Alice did.
8. Daniel needs a bath. I could smell him off the pages.
9. I am grateful for my Dad and I love him.
10. I'll read this again next year.