Laws of Love and Logic by Debra Curtis

 

This is a powerful, beautifully-written story about loss, love, forgiveness and redemption, imbued with scholarship and philosophy. The heart of the book is Lily’s love-story, although the novel also tells the story of her sister Jane.  The two sisters go on an incredible journey searching for meaning in the novel but whether they find happiness depends partly on their own strength of character.

At the beginning of the story, Lily, married to an older, cultured American professor, yearns for the boy who she fell in love with at 14. She thinks back to their love-story. Raised by a Catholic, feminist mother who dies young, their father then brings the two sisters up single-handedly. Clever girls, Jane becomes over the top, uninhabited and takes to drugs. Lily’s love for The Boy ends in a terrible tragedy, and she is haunted by guilt while Jane has a wise soul but can’t seem to stop being self-destructive. 

When Lily comes into contact with The Boy again, she has to make a choice…

This is well-worth reading, but I also found it incredibly depressing, so I am not I was also puzzled by Lily’s not feeling any guilt about her abortion, and her mother’s attitude towards abortion, considering that they were Catholic. That didn’t seem realistic to me - in those days at least. 

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.