It's been a while since I managed to finish a book but this one got me by the hooks and kept me reading. I picked it up at my local library and had a couple of messages about how good it is from people that have read it, and some asking about what it's like once I've finished. Spoiler alert: It's great.
I am no stranger to heartbreak as I'm sure most of us aren't but usually we hear about this from the female perspective and we assume that men just don't care or don't go through the same emotional processes we females do. But what intrigued me was how this book went through the entire break up process from the mans POV and showed that maybe we aren't the only ones having a tough time of it.
It starts out describing the breakup and the relationship and is written in date terms (which usually annoys me but I could kind of disregard that here) showing the breakup over a progression of time. It's sarcastic and funny but also heartbreaking. One of my favourite things about any book or film or piece of music is the little nuggets of wisdom that can be inserted to grab you by the heart strings when you least expect it and this had them with a capital W.
"And then we met and fell in love and we introduced each other to all of it, like children showing each other their favourite toys. That instinct never goes - look at my fire engine, look at my vinyl collection. Look at all these things I've chosen to represent who I am." Something that we do often is forget that what we own and like and enjoy really is a representation of ourselves, and showing that to someone else and inviting them in is both scary and exciting at the same time.
"No sooner have I left than I feel myself missing the old place; longing for the sharper pain of those first three months out of the break-up." When the sadness goes and all that is left is memories with little to no feeling attached can be such a bittersweet time because the pain is all we had left of that person, and once we have to let that go, they really are gone. " I don't know if I really want to move on, because the further away I get from the pain, the further away I get from her."
With this book mainly being from the male perspective, it also touches on how men support or don't support each other, and it is interesting to me that even though people want to connect and want to talk with deep feelings to each other, they just feel that they can't. "None of us really ask him any questions about how he's coping. We don't offer any sort of emotional support, other than saying that we're all here for him, despite not having all been in a room together since the last time one of us had a break-up, four months ago."
There are a few times in the book he seeks comfort from his mum and this was one of the best pieces of advice in the entire book and really really stuck with me:
"You don't let go once. That's your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime. You might not have thought about her for ten years, then you'll hear a song or you'll walk past somewhere you once went together - something will come to the surface that you'd totally forgotten about. And you say another goodbye."
Hard hitting when you think about it because everyone we meet becomes a part of us in some way, whether we like it or not. Ways they did things or showed us how to do something, words we pick up, ways to eat or dress or places to go that wouldn't have been in our orbit without that other person.
Then we get to the housemate, the strange old man that has his own ways but means well. And here he comes out with something completely unexpected but makes total and complete sense without even saying much. "Life is a bit more difficult for women. More difficult than it is for us, I mean. And you don't need to ask them to explain why or understand it all. You just need to be nice to them."
While I see that this wouldn't really be a book that men would pick up or go for, I truly think it's one they should read. Something that was fun and interesting and somewhat cathartic for me and other women to read, is also something men could do with understanding.
So my advice is yes, read the book, especially if you've ever had a break-up that really hurt you. But more importantly? If you know a man that reads or wants to read more, give him this.
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