Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by larosier
Couplets: A Love Story by Maggie Millner
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
EVERYTHING ALWAYS FINDS ME AT MY ABSOLUTE WORST
"And I can still feel the invisible moat we both believed in, on the other side of which we knew lay torment, exhale, wreckage, the anarchy of singledom. Loss upon loss. I remember testing it, the moat; throwing across a rope to check its breadth, twice to the waist, wading in before retreating, shamefaced, reining myself back. To him, it was a sea, I think: entirely impassable. To me it was a dizzying ravine that circled us for years, then cut between."
“It seemed unforgivable to end anything on purpose, especially when you saw the life you’d made together as alive: a symbiotic animal you’d raised with him, now tugging at its rope. Furred and hungry, and looking at you with the blank face of a factory cow—a face, so soft and innocent and gaunt, you’d have to be a monster not to want.”
"And I can still feel the invisible moat we both believed in, on the other side of which we knew lay torment, exhale, wreckage, the anarchy of singledom. Loss upon loss. I remember testing it, the moat; throwing across a rope to check its breadth, twice to the waist, wading in before retreating, shamefaced, reining myself back. To him, it was a sea, I think: entirely impassable. To me it was a dizzying ravine that circled us for years, then cut between."
“It seemed unforgivable to end anything on purpose, especially when you saw the life you’d made together as alive: a symbiotic animal you’d raised with him, now tugging at its rope. Furred and hungry, and looking at you with the blank face of a factory cow—a face, so soft and innocent and gaunt, you’d have to be a monster not to want.”
“Other times, I could feel myself become him.”
“There is frequently the feeling of a garden: the feeling of chasing a garden.
“You will fall in love. The relationship will end, though not at the same instant as the love. Some version of this will continue, maybe forever, happening to you.”
“Put romantic love at the center of a novel today, and who could be persuaded that in its pursuit the characters are going to get to something large?”
“You could have had everything you wanted, had it been what you wanted. [...] At great cost you got a sense for what your life could be, and still had to admit that after all, that wasn’t really it. [...] And you will lose again. And no matter what you do you can’t not want. ”