A review by literarycrushes
The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

5.0

I thought this novel was excellent. It reads as part documentary, part self-help book. It had an overarching cinematic tone to it, in the vein of decades-spanning films like Life Itself or When Harry Met Sally. It was a unique retelling of a romance, starting in infancy (the story is mainly tole through the man – Rabih’s – viewpoint but the reader also gets a portrait of Kirsten) and spanning through middle age. The novel makes the point that while contemporary romance stories usually conclude with a ‘happy ending’ after the couple getting engaged, married, or overcomes some major roadblock, love is not so easily tied up into a neat little bow after the final chapter. To fall in love is easy, de Botton claims. To stay in a happy and functional relationship over the course of many, many years (and obstacles, both major and minor) with your beloved is not so easy. Without ever sounding cynical or preachy, The Course of Love is a poetic antidote to what we’re told love is by Hollywood films and more commercial romance novels.
*I’d originally added The Course of Love by Alain de Botton to my TBR after watching something online about how it was one of Harry Style’s favorite books. I’d read other books by de Botton (The Art of Travel) before and had been a longtime fan of his ‘emotional education’ venture, The School of Life.