📖 Book Review ~ True Love by Paddy Crewe

 

Doubleday Books
4 July 2024

My thanks to the publisher for the invitation to read this book

KEELY feels alone in the world — grief consumes her, she wants to escape it, to take both her father's and her own pain away. She knows that solace lies in the act of loving and being loved but, struggling in ever-deepening waters, she doesn't know how to find it. FINN has been devastated too. As a young boy, growing up with his grandparents, he feels his fate has already been sealed by the neglect of those meant to care for him most. With no real friends to turn to, he cannot find the vocabulary to deal with the loneliness and heartache that haunt him. As we watch them each grow, connection seems to be the answer – to be seen and heard and received as who they are. Maybe it's this that could release them from their private pains. Is it that simple?

📖 My Review..

Keely is twelve when we first meet her, she lives with her caring, but remote father, and her little brother, William. They eke out a meagre living picking sea coal and the caravan where they live is functional, but basic. When tragedy strikes, Keely must try and hold everything together but she doesn't know how to shoulder the unbearable burden of grief which hangs about her shoulders like a cloud. She searches for a means of escape, desperately seeking comfort in a world which doesn't seem to care very much about her. 

Finn is an introspective child, brought up by his grandparents, he is always on the outside looking in, and although perfectly content with his own company, he remains a lonely child, an easy target for bullies and made fun of by those who see him as some kind of misfit. On the surface these two lost and lonely souls would never have met but as this hauntingly beautiful story unfolds we start to discover that sometimes the stars align and what will be, will inevitably, be.

True Love wrapped itself around me like a blanket and even when I wasn't reading it my thoughts returned to Keely and Finn, two of the most memorable literary characters I have met in a long time. Whilst the story is a complex study into the fragility of relationships it is also desperately sad and deeply moving. It’s the story of two people searching for something only to have life get in the way and though desperate for a happy ever after ending, I knew that life isn’t always kind enough to give us what we want. Strong and beautiful the essence of True Love lingers long after the book is closed and Keely and Finn’s story is finally told.

About the Author

Paddy Crewe was born in Middlesbrough and studied at Goldsmiths. His debut novel, My Name Is Yip, has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, a South Bank Sky Arts Award and The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.

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