Reviews

Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud

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oshrat's review

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

amygraver1's review against another edition

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5.0

A beautiful story about family and friendship. I cried and smiled it was just perfect. I learnt so much about Trini culture and will pick up anything Ingrid Persaud writes in the future with no hesitation.

orasolomons's review against another edition

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dark sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

katewhite77's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

As Beautiful As It Is Heartbreaking.

One lunchtime whilst working in a school, Miss Betty sidles up to Mr Chetan to become her lodger, and a beautiful dacades long begins. They
try did try being lovers for a time, and whilst that didn't work out too well, the friendship only deepened.

Chetan helps raise Solo, Miss Betty's son, for many years. That is until, one day, Solo over hears something that completely changes the course of their lives. This novel spans continents, and the decades just melt into each other. We go from baking hot Trinidadian summers to freezing cold winters in New York. Love conquers all undoubtedly, but the question remains at what cost.

Not an easy read by any means, trigger warnings everywhere, but I have no doubt that this will trouble my top books of the year list and has further cemented my love of Caribbean literature.

Content Warnings

clothilde_jn's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.75

emkaypee's review

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4.0

First of all, soooo many trigger warnings. Please check them before you read!

All I can say is I gasped and yelled WHAT THE FUCK and cried for the last 50 pages of the book. Jesus Christ.

rae477's review

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challenging dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

cfurniss22's review

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3.0

Wanted to love it but was a bit underwhelmed. The plot didn’t progress much until the very end, with a lot of repetitive scenes of Betty longing for Solo to speak to her/come home in between that got quite tiresome.

Enjoyed the Trinidadian context. Dealt with some really heavy topics which can always be a bit hit and miss - it wasn’t a total miss but definitely not a hit for me either.

erickabdz's review

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3.0

Somebody–I can't remember who–emailed me to say that I will be fine because the Lord only gives us what we can bear. I wanted to write back and say that is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. We are forever getting more than we can bear. Always. It's just that we don't have a choice in the matter.

Such a striking book about an unconventional, lovely family. Love After Love is, in its heart, a novel about different types of love, and the messy, complex relationships that can exist between people (including, but especially not romantic). The beautiful writing captivated me since the beginning, and I was quickly dragged to the dynamics surrounding Betty, Solo, and Mr. Chetan. I was especially in awe because God knows how much I love exploring non-romantic relationships, and the one between Betty and Mr. Chetan was but miraculous to read.

Sadly, for a book whose big strength remained in the relationships, I never felt a strong connection to any of the characters; I think, it would have worked a little better for me with more scenes where their relationship was growing. Still, I loved reading about them, especially because of the novel's unique set of grey, intricated characters.

If I can't like this more it's because while my head can understand the

Spoiler

horrible, abrupt force of indiscriminate violence, I feel that the death of Mr. Chetan required such a level of care that is difficult to accomplish, especially for someone that is not a gay man, and I don't think this tragedy was done enough justice.

. Still, the beautiful writing and vibrant dialogues made this read worthwhile for me, and I loved learning about Trinidad, though as some Trinidad reviewers also pointed, this is nothing but a fraction of it.

mon_star's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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