Who Do You Love

Patricia Nelson

** spoiler alert **
           Rachel Blum - high brow Philly/Miami; heart defect
Andy Landis - poor, runner, Olympian, lost

Colleen

So I decided to pick up something romantic for Valentine's Day. I'd looked at Who Do You Love a few months ago but wasn't interested enough to read it at the time. But this week when I was at the library, I had a sudden hankering to read something amorous for Valentine's Day. So I looked around, saw this book sitting on the new arrivals shelf, and grabbed it.

Wrong choice. Definitely the wrong choice. 

Let me say that if I hadn't specifically gotten this book as feel-good read then I might not be feeling so enormously miffed right now. But that IS why I selected it. Yet this book took naïve my quest for happy vibes and trampled them like a discarded sweat towel at a marathon. Who Do You Love turned out a complete downer. 

The top tag for this book on Goodreads is Chick Lit. I'm not sure why, because this book is definitely NOT Chick Lit. Chick Lit is fluffy and fun. Who Do You Love falls more into the broader category of Women's Fiction (I.E. Chick Lit with a serious tone and real life issues minus any lightheartedness or cuteness.) Now, I was not looking for something fluffy to the level of Sophie Kinsella (mainly because I just had a bad experience with I've Got Your Number), but I did want something heartwarming. There were couple (yes, probably a only two) of cute moments, but the majority was a whole lot of "life is depressing."

The book opens with a gloomy, fatalistic scene. From there you jump back in time 30+ years to find out the event that led up to the aforementioned rock bottom. Starting with a flash-forward and then going back and finding out why it happened is not a favored plot device of mine. But usually when people use this format, they start with something exciting or gripping, not with something depressing. The problem was that I did not know exactly when this event would occur in the overall story. Either the low-point happens towards the middle and you have somewhere to rise after that. Or else the low really is the end and you just trudged along 400 some pages just to get to something so dreary. That is the equivalent of walking ten miles just to get to have a root canal done. 

But I ignored the warning bells and trudged on regardless. After the black-cloud-looming prologue, the story goes back to the main characters' childhoods. The chapters switch back and forth between Rachel and Andy which did not bother me too much despite the provocation of Rachel's chapters being told in first person and Andy's being told in third person. Still, the story started off well enough (not counting the prologue of course). 

The story spans over thirty years, but it does move mostly in a linear progression. The problem that I usually have with stories that span long periods of time is that you get the Highlight Real Effect. It feels like you are watching a movie but someone keeps fast-forwarding through bits of it. Even if those bits were not particularly interesting, skipping them still leaves a sense of disorientation. There is a lot of lost time between jumps. And Who Do You Love does not just skip the boring bits. The narrative actually has to spend a lot of time backtracking to tell the reader what happened over the lost time. One chapter would end leaving you with a seemingly solid grasp of where the characters were at, but then the next chapter would start with a "well... actually this is how that situation turned out." So suddenly it is two years later and the characters are somewhere else entirely (physically, emotionally), and you don't know how they got there or what led up to that. It robbed me of the emotional connection of following along with the characters. 

And I did not feel overwhelmingly interested in how the characters would end up. At first I was, mainly throughout their childhood and teen years. But after that my interest waned drastically. As time went on, the acted more selfish and stupid. It became increasingly hard to root for them. Neither main character was particularly compelling as the story went on, and the rest of the characters were just a small framework around them. The other characters were never fleshed out enough to matter much. 

It seemed at times that the story was trying to cram in some other life messages about forgiveness and second chances, but they were never developed or strong enough to make an impression. Issues such as racism and classism were mentioned throughout the story but never expounded upon enough to really matter. They were crutches that the characters used. 

Another thing I found off-putting was the constant brand name dropping. It seemed like the author felt the only way she could cement the story in the specific years she wanted was to mention every brand and trend of that time. It felt more like an article about consumerism through the decades at times than a novel. While I like historic fiction to be strongly anchored in the correct time period without anachronisms, there is also such a thing as overdoing it. These name drops did not add anything to the story. Rather, they cluttered it up. Have you ever noticed that the timeless classics are not bogged down by that sort of thing? Perhaps it is because their authors worried more about the writing than making sure their characters used the correct brand of lip gloss. 

The description made this book sound like a grand, serendipitous love story. Perhaps there was a bit of the star-crossed lover ploy. Perhaps there was the air of "right person, wrong time." But I had all but lost interest by the end. 

And oh the ending. Honestly, I might have still awarded three stars if it weren't for the ending. The non-spoiler version is: It was lame, and I didn't like it. The huger spoiler version: (view spoiler)[You know that black cloud I mentioned looming over the whole story? Well it doesn't come back around until nearly the end of the book. By this point, I was mostly resigned to getting an unhappy ending. But to my further disgruntlement, I saw that even though there were only a few pages left in the book, the author was still trying to cram Rachel and Andy back together. And so they reconnect. On the second-to-last page. It was so abrupt and rushed that it completely ruined any satisfaction in them getting together. It felt more like the editor asked her to rewrite the last few pages so that the most optimistic readers could pretend that they lived happily ever after. 

But the thing is, I didn't get the sense of Happily Ever After. Dropping an "I'll love you forever" and a pitiful kiss was not sufficient evidence towards a belief that they were actually going to stick with it this time. Because by that point they had been on again-off again for over three decades. There were lots of other "I'll love you forever" declarations throughout the book and none of those turned out any better. Both characters ran away every time things got a little difficult. Maybe one could argue that they are more mature at this point and have grown up enough to actually commit. But the abrupt ending with no epilogue or real resolution just left me with the impression that these two would continue the same cycle until the day they die. Like I said, it was a complete downer. (hide spoiler)]

The bottom line is that this was not the book for me. If you enjoy more serious fiction about how life is unhappy and depressing, well then you might enjoy this. But if you want something to put you in a good mood, LOOK ELSEWHERE!!

Courtney ✿ @librarycutie

ARC provided by Atria Books!


Um, Holy Cow! I didn't know too much when I started reading this, as I always prefer, so I was surprised by how much I totally freaking loved it! It starts with a Prologue dated in 2014, Rachel, you can see that something traumatic has happened and immediately I'm wondering what happened. The first chapter goes to where it all, presumably began, 1985, when Rachel was only eight years old in a hospital with a fresh scar on her chest. That's where she meets almost-nine-year-old Andy. He's sitting in the waiting room alone holding his arm to himself because he fell off a balcony and his mother isn't to be found yet. Rachel keeps Andy company until his mother Lori finally comes raising all kinds of hell. I think I knew I would enjoy this novel from the first chapter, I just had this feeling.


Through-out this book you get to see how Rachel and Andy grow up never seeing each other until they run into each other one summer when volunteering for the Home Free organization in Atlanta for school. It was such a cute week they had together, building houses together, catching up, slowly falling for the other, and lots and lots of kissing. I admit, Rachel pissed me off with what she did to Bethie, and I was shocked Andy didn't walk off after witnessing it.. They go back to their hometowns and two years later they are reunited once again for a day to remember. They go through a lot together, they are what you would call an on again-off again couple.

In the course of thirty years you get to see Rachel and Andy live their life, sometimes together, most of the time separately, and you get to watch them grow, learn, make mistakes, fall in love, become heartbroken, and be successful and happy. I fell in love with the story, I fell in love with the way Rachel and Andy fell in love. I was really proud of Andy, he worked so hard and finally achieved his dreams, but I feared fame had got the best of him, he had a good run though... did you catch the pun, heehee!! There were many moments when I would just groan in frustration at either Andy or Rachel for the things they did, especially Andy for not seeing what a good thing he had and then ruining it for some model that only wanted him for his fame. But he learned, and thank god, that last chapter had me in a freaking squealing fit, 
  finally
!

The writing was amazing! I flew through most of the book, it was smoothly written and well put together, I love how it's told from both Andy and Rachel's point of view and has the years stated each chapter as well. You get to see how much has happened since last chapter.

This book has a lot of real life experiences in it, and that's another reason why I enjoyed it so much, how real it felt, like I might as well be Rachel, except I wasn't born with a heart condition, and I wasn't born in the 70s, and I'm not jewish... But still! This was an amazing book, and if you enjoy New Adult Romance novels, then this is a book you need to check out!

Kourtney

It speaks volumes about a book when I put it down and then it takes me a while to pick it back up. I never connected with either character and didn't care if they got together or not. This book was too slow and drawn out for my tastes.

Chelsea White

Quick, light romantic read. I liked seeing the build-up of Rachel and Andy's relationship, from the age of 8 on. It felt inevitable, as it was meant to. I definitely recommend it if you're looking for an easy read with some good, interesting characters

Lisa ✩ @lifeinlit

Rachel and Andy meet at the hospital in an ER room when they are at the ripe young age of 9. They quickly connected over Rachel’s storytelling and Andy’s unique humor. The two meet again when they are teenagers at a camp. And again, in high school. Again after that. Andy and Rachel continue running into each other at different points of their lives, never forgetting about the other. There’s something about your first love that can never be forgotten.

“Your first love is important. It’s part of your story. The story you’ll tell yourself, the one you’ll tell about yourself, for the rest of your life.”

I adored these characters. They were so opposite, yet so perfect together. Rachel came from a well-off family, never needing for anything. She suffered a heart issue at a very young age, so her parents babied her and tried to protect her most of her life. Andy, on the other hand, was extremely poor, even forced to borrow winter coats and other items from fellow students. His mother was less like a parent and more like a roommate. She pushed the rest of the family away, even Andy’s grandparents, leaving him with very little family to support him. The two couldn’t be more different… yet they were drawn together by an unstoppable force. Their friendship-turned-more relationship severely hit my heart where it counts. My emotions were all over the board while reading this story.

Who Do You Love was emotional and strong, the type of story you will remember long after finishing it. I think parts of this story will always remain with me. This book takes “second chance romance” to a whole new level. A gorgeous romance that has to be experienced to be understood. Who Do You Love brings the term “love story” to a whole new level.

(Thanks to Atria Books for the review copy!)

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Who Do You Love

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