L Is For Love

"The Lover's Dictionary" by Steven Levitan is certainly a unique book.  It's a love tory told in a first person account under "headings" of dictionary entries. Some are meant to be derivative, others ironic. They range from a word, a one-liner, a paragraph, a memory. They can be cute, serious, funny, touching.  For example:

abstraction, n.

Love is one kind of abstraction. And then there are those nights when I sleep alone, when I curl into a pillow that isn't you, when I hear the tiptoe sounds that aren't yours. It's not as if I can conjure you there completely. I must embrace the idea of you instead. 


or...


antsy, adj.

I swore I would never take you to the opera again.


The heart of the story is simple : boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, girl cheats, boy and girl separate. But the story is told in such a personal manner so raw you really feel the emotions, and in the end even in the banality of it all you are heartbroken. This is a cute little book that will remind you of that feeling you have when you first fell in love and then got hurt. Yes, the form of the novel is gimmicky, but it has enough heart to overcome that.


BC/8