I am
not a celebratory person. This personality trait covers many aspects of life
including birthdays, events, and holidays, but it really rises to the surface
when faced with commercially overblown fake holidays. Valentine’s Day--I’m
talking to you. Why, oh why, has a single date on the calendar come to signify love
and all sundry of pink things? Every year wherever I’m working I battle for an
un-Valentine book display as opposed to the ubiquitous “Love Story” array, and
most years I win. Let’s face it--people happy in love don’t need to read about
other people happy in love, but a great, kick-you-in-the-face, love stinks book
can do wonders for the heartsick psyche. Or anyone, really.
A
number of different plotlines fall into the love stinks genre: death of one (or
both) characters, fate or life circumstances keep lovers apart,
it’s-not-you-it’s-me break up, falling out of love, etc. Here are a few books
from our display that meet these different love stinks scenarios.
Death:
The demise of a romantic partner can be as classic as Romeo and Juliet,
taken with a modern twist like The Fault in Our Stars (John Green) and Me
Before You (JoJo Moyes), or encompass diverse relationships like A
Little Life (Hanya Yanagihara). Any way you slice it these books are sad--bring
tissues.
They’re
Better Off Apart: Some characters just don’t belong together--for me Rhett and
Scarlett (Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell) fall clearly
into this category. Is she going to “get him back” as she claims near the end?
I for one hope not. Everyone in This is How You Lose Her (Junot Diaz) is
better off without the main character, Yunior, in this collection of connected
short stories. It’s possible that he has finally learned something in the
end...but you never know.
Life
Circumstances Keep Them Apart: Circumstances can’t get much more uncontrollable
than The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger). Clare and Henry
attempt a traditional marriage even though he tends to arbitrarily jump around
to different times. Yeah, that will complicate things. Family pulls a
late in life couple apart in Our Souls at Night (Kent Haruf), and a more
perfectly tidy, heartbreaking 180 pages may not exist in literature. Read it in
one sitting--you won’t regret it.
So
many not-perfect endings, so little time.
PK
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