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3.76 AVERAGE
3.76 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Pregnancy
4.5 stars for me.
In The Love of My Life, Rosie Walsh offers a twisty contemporary fiction novel and psychological thriller centered around a fascinating cast of characters, heartbreak, and hope.
To see my full review on The Bossy Bookworm, or to find out about Bossy reviews and Greedy Reading Lists as soon as they're posted, please see The Love of My Life.
Find hundreds of reviews and lots of roundups of my favorite books on the blog: Bossy Bookworm
Follow me on Instagram! @bossybookwormblog
Or Facebook! The Bossy Bookworm
Emma is a marine biologist who's devoted to her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby. Emma finds herself fighting aggressive lymphoma, and Leo, an obituary writer, privately copes with his pain by writing about Emma.
Emma is recovering. But as Leo continues to dig into his wife's past to confirm details, he finds that the facts his beloved wife has told him don't add up. He doesn't want to upset Emma, so he does something he's never done: he goes behind her back, speaking to people from her past who can fill in the gaps. And he finds that almost everything Emma has ever told him about herself has been a lie.
Walsh tells the story in two parts, alternating between chapters exploring Emma's young life (the true story) and chapters from the present (the unraveling of falsehoods). Through both timelines, Walsh slowly builds the true narrative while uncovering Emma's motivations, traumas, emotional state, and the outside forces at work, while also exploring weighty topics including mental illness and loss.
The tone of The Love of My Life is more toward contemporary fiction, and the book offers satisfying character development, but The Love of My Life is also a psychological thriller with twists and turns. Without melodrama or a manipulative-feeling big reveal, Walsh surprised me with the real story and the reasons Emma kept her secrets. This wonderfully wrought page-turner is heartbreaking, hopeful, and masterfully crafted.
In The Love of My Life, Rosie Walsh offers a twisty contemporary fiction novel and psychological thriller centered around a fascinating cast of characters, heartbreak, and hope.
To see my full review on The Bossy Bookworm, or to find out about Bossy reviews and Greedy Reading Lists as soon as they're posted, please see The Love of My Life.
Find hundreds of reviews and lots of roundups of my favorite books on the blog: Bossy Bookworm
Follow me on Instagram! @bossybookwormblog
Or Facebook! The Bossy Bookworm
Emma is a marine biologist who's devoted to her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby. Emma finds herself fighting aggressive lymphoma, and Leo, an obituary writer, privately copes with his pain by writing about Emma.
Emma is recovering. But as Leo continues to dig into his wife's past to confirm details, he finds that the facts his beloved wife has told him don't add up. He doesn't want to upset Emma, so he does something he's never done: he goes behind her back, speaking to people from her past who can fill in the gaps. And he finds that almost everything Emma has ever told him about herself has been a lie.
Walsh tells the story in two parts, alternating between chapters exploring Emma's young life (the true story) and chapters from the present (the unraveling of falsehoods). Through both timelines, Walsh slowly builds the true narrative while uncovering Emma's motivations, traumas, emotional state, and the outside forces at work, while also exploring weighty topics including mental illness and loss.
The tone of The Love of My Life is more toward contemporary fiction, and the book offers satisfying character development, but The Love of My Life is also a psychological thriller with twists and turns. Without melodrama or a manipulative-feeling big reveal, Walsh surprised me with the real story and the reasons Emma kept her secrets. This wonderfully wrought page-turner is heartbreaking, hopeful, and masterfully crafted.
I must admit up front I picked this one up from a friend’s preorder guide and also because of the cover. I mean
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Pleasantly surprised by this one but still not a love
3.5 stars. Sucked me in and kept me entertained, mixed feelings overall though.
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Wow this was a much different and much better book than I was expecting after reading the synopsis. I put it off because I couldn’t figure out why a guy would want to “pre write” his wife’s obituary or why I’d want to read a book about that because it sounded strange and depressing, but it makes much more sense within the context of the story and is hardly a focus of the book anyways (I hate when book jacket descriptions make a smaller detail in the story seem like it’s a huge plot point. Anyways…)
This is a mystery with some heart and grit to it, NOT a thriller. There is tension and suspense but it’s definitely a slow burn and I was not immediately sucked in. But I pushed through because the writing was beautiful and when the story picked up, the tides turned and I couldn’t put it down. I loved where it went and that it surprised me, both with its twists and genuine emotion, because I am jaded and find so many books either predictable or cheesy. For me, this was neither. And I think I have a crush on Leo, despite his strange job. In the end he just seemed like such a good guy
This is a mystery with some heart and grit to it, NOT a thriller. There is tension and suspense but it’s definitely a slow burn and I was not immediately sucked in. But I pushed through because the writing was beautiful and when the story picked up, the tides turned and I couldn’t put it down. I loved where it went and that it surprised me, both with its twists and genuine emotion, because I am jaded and find so many books either predictable or cheesy. For me, this was neither. And I think I have a crush on Leo, despite his strange job. In the end he just seemed like such a good guy
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes