Conversations on Love

2.5ish perhaps. Unfortunately this will be quite the forgettable read for me especially by the end of the year.

The first part, while I understandmany woman will find relatable, the young time in our life where we're wanting love and self doubts, it just came across too much like “pick me energy” and not enough deep dive into how we can alter that mindset to help.

Lunn's narrative voice that comes in between the questions is what made this experience not the best. After the first part and we know of her marriage, I'd say a good 70%ish of the rest of this is her talking about her miscarriage and or having the questions/answers with others skew towards her view point on how to deal with her miscarriage and dealing with how her marriage changed with intimacy. It felt more self serving than anything else in those moments. Other's who have read this and rated it lower like I have, make mention that it's repetitive and I agree, I wish there was a bit more nuance or that her monologues were more limited. It was almost like a backhand way for what I felt like what an attempt memoir of her experience with her husband and of her miscarriage.

I think this book is so successful because it definitely has the themes to help a multitude of people. There's conversations on loving yourself, what we can do to keep our relationships love steady through years, conversations on grief, etc.

If this works for you, great! But I found myself in an odd age bracket for this one. Mostly for how a majority of those who were interviewed came from what felt like a limited (perhaps privileged) view point. The sense of help might be lost on many others when the advice given in one section on how a husband can “show up” for his wife was to get a plane immediately and fly to where his wife was (to hand deliver a letter where he wrote down all his wrongdoings to her and the marriage. I wanted to say yikes!). Sure, I got the balance in my account to buy a ticket that would be so jacked up in price for a one day notice to surprise my partner, but is that sensible or reasonable? I can understand the message here, the intent, but most conversations skewed towards the “I have a life already set up, I”ve mostly moved on or have healed this part in my life, here's my answer to a few questions now that I'm in my later half of life. Good luck kids!” Pandering almost, annoying more so.

Sometimes I hear jokes about the kind of books you could buy your father, all the super commercialized ones like a Harlan Coben thriller. This one is what I'd suggest to gift your mother, or as a book club pick, because honestly, it just felt that gimmicky.

A very bare 4, only rescued from 3-dom by a good last quarter. Just a series of random thoughts on love based on interviews. Probably going to appeal more to the poet inside of you than the engineer. Didn't feed my brain in any way or leave me any wiser about the nature of love but slightly warmed my heart occasionally when one of the interviewees said something beyond the old cliches of love.

3.75

I enjoyed most of it because it was very interesting and had quite a few takes and perspectives on things that I haven't considered before. The format of this book was quite refreshing and also very captivating to read. At times it gets rather repetitive and slow which is why I dnf'ed this before but I liked the second half and the exploration of love in the context of grief.

”For everyone lost in longing”

It took me some time to finish this book and I must admit that I only finished it because I changed to the audiobook version.

This happened because I was not learning anything It particular from it, not because it was not interesting and worthy of read, but because it was not news to me. I am very lucky and privileged regarding love, both the romantic and the family type, and I feel I did a lot of work on myself a few years ago. Therapy helped me learning to express myself, to believe I am worthy of love and good things and to ask for what I need. Additionally, I believe we should consciously choose to be happy and grateful about what we have in our life, value the little things and, most of all, understand that our happiness should not be dependent on others, it is not fair for others to carry that weight and responsibility.

The friendship chapters improved my opinion of the book as I could relate more with what was happening. Motherhood ended being a significant issue on the book and, as it changed so many things in my life, I have felt comfort reading and listening about those experiences. Do not get me wrong, it is still filled with platitudes we know everything about, but it still makes you feel less lonely. This would apply both to people experiencing motherhood and the friends that, by choice or not, are experiencing different phases of their lives.

Overall, I believe everyone will find something on this book they will relate on, whether if you want to find love, keep it, or need help dealing with its loss, and this is the reason why it has been so successful and appeals to so many people.