Review: The Look of Love

Cover Summary:

Born during a Christmas blizzard, Jane Williams receives a rare gift: the ability to see true love. Jane has emerged from an ailing childhood a lonely, hopeless romantic when, on her twenty-ninth birthday, a mysterious greeting card arrives, specifying that Jane must identify the six types of love before the full moon following her thirtieth birthday, or face grave consequences. When Jane falls for a science writer who doesn’t believe in love, she fears that her fate is sealed. Inspired by the classic song, The Look of Love is utterly enchanting.

The explanation for Jane’s ability to see love, and the challenge she receives, may seem a bit arbitrary - why six types of love, and why the punishment if she fails? But it is this very rigid structure that allows the author to explore love in all its diverse and unpredictable beauty.

Jane finds six couples in her circle of friends, charting the course of their love stories in third person narration as well as her own in first person. Some of them surprised me with their endings, but yes, some of them are cliché. Not all of the couples are neatly paired off, either, at the end. I’ll let you guess which ones:

• ·      Flynn, Jane’s brother, is fascinated by a beautiful artist he never speaks to, and only sees through glass.
• ·      Lo, Jane’s co-worker, is an expert at casual dating. But when the best match she’s ever had turns out to be married, all her expertise may not keep her from getting hurt.
• ·      Elaine, married with children, is torn between her kind but predictable husband and the impulsive neighbour who wants to fly with her in a hot air balloon.
• ·      Mary, pregnant and divorced, is falling for the Italian contractor she hired to remodel her kitchen. But is it fair to ask him to take her on, with all the responsibilities involved?
• ·      Mel, a 73-year-old newsstand owner, was heartbroken for years when his wife died. Now he’s finally interested in someone new – an English aristocrat who wouldn’t look at him twice.
• ·      Josh and Katie are engaged and couldn’t be happier – until one of them disappears.

The story shines most during those scenes where Jane is going about her daily life, and her gift surprises her. For example, she looks at a handsome young man offering a diamond ring to his girlfriend, and the telltale haze in her vision isn’t there. She looks at a middle-aged woman nagging her husband not to eat cheese when he’s lactose intolerant, and their aura almost blinds her.

Jane’s own love story, unfortunately, is a weak point in the book. Cameron Collins, her love interest, is too arrogant for such a gentle, lonely woman. The first time they meet, being drunk at a New Year’s Eve party and upset by his cynicism, she tells him about her gift and how it proves the existence of love. He mocks her for it, then several days later, practically orders her to have dinner with him. Why she accepts is a mystery, unless it’s because he looks good in tweed.

He does turn out to have some human vulnerability later on, but she doesn’t know that in the beginning. As for the classic “third act misunderstanding” that almost drives them apart, I saw that coming a mile away.

Still, the two of them share some interesting, Star Trek-style debates about logic versus emotion.

“The brain isn’t made to sustain that feeling of intoxication,” he tells her (p. 77). “Even the greatest love stories turn to pots and pans.”

“But (…) there is still love in the pots and pans. Deep love,” she retorts several weeks later (p. 177).

Or, in the words of my mother, who has been happily married to my father for 27 years: “Love is what you get to keep when the romance is over.”

A rare sentiment, but true, and it sums up this book better than anything else I could write.