A review by imogenrose97
Love Me Tender by Constance Debré

dark emotional reflective sad medium-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

4.75

The events of this book are completely surreal, though based on the author's experiences and I'm sure very close to so many others as well, the idea that someone who once loved you, would so badly want to traumatise both you and the child you both had, is incomprehensible to me. 
The character's name is revealed in two parts each once in the novel, revealing the author at the heart of the story. Her thoughts are two-sided, at once she yearns to see her son, understandably struggling to be without him so abruptly. This side is balanced with the emotional maturity of get this... an adult, she tries not to push, she knows what her ex-husband is trying to achieve and she patiently lets him carry it out, she doesn't bite back at the fictionalised version of herself that he tries to paint to the courts and to her son. Instead choosing to let his anger take its course, trusting her son to make his own mind up in the years that come. The second side is gratefulness to explore the self she is becoming without the need to parent, which has been stripped from her without her consent. Taking her freedom to date women recklessly (and at times cruelly), to change her style, to experience queerness as a rebirth like a teen with the confidence of an adult and all of the freedoms of both childhood and adulthood.