THE LOOK OF LOVE by Sarah Jio-a review
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date November 25, 2014
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.
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REVIEW: THE LOOK OF LOVE is an atypical romance storyline with a slight paranormal twist from author Sarah Jio. The focus of the story is on florist and Christmas baby Jane Williams who on her twenty ninth birthday begins a quest to identify six kinds of love. Jane has been gifted with the ‘ability’ to see love and she has one year to complete her quest or face a lifetime without love-for herself. Enter six friends and strangers whose lives become the focus of Jane’s journey and the entries into a journal where the seers of love, before Jane, have chronicled their own adventures.
Told from first person (Jane) and several third person points of view
the reader is pulled into a different kind of storyline where issues of ethics and morals make for some interesting bedfellows. Most of the characters on Jane’s journey are not happy in their present life; the grass is always greener on the other side and Jane is aware, more than anyone, that love can present itself in mysterious ways. THE LOOK OF LOVE follows six relationships from beginning to end; the heartbreak, the sorrow, the love and the emotional fall out of questionable fidelity, soul mates and loss when two people meant to be together must overcome everything life has to offer before getting on with their lives or moving on. The characters are flawed; some relationships are explored more deeply than others; and not everyone will walk away with a happily ever after.
Jane’s own story of love is woven throughout the book-a story of building love, hope for the future and an act of betrayal so heartbreaking that to never find love may be easier than to have found love and lost. It is this particular part of the storyline where some issues of ethics as it pertains to one character are questionable, illegal and never completely addressed. To make a contemporary storyline believable, the author must confront the reality of certain situations, regardless of the slight paranormal premise.
THE LOOK OF LOVE identifies six different types of love and presents six different relationships that will equate to the name and definition:
Ludus-Game of Love
Eros-Passionate Love
Storge-Love born from friendship (natural affection)
Mania-Obsessive Love
Agape-Unconditional, altruistic love
Pragma-Love driven by the head
Sarah Jio explores the emotional, physical and psychological ‘look of love’ in a storyline that is slow to develop as the players on Jane’s journey are introduced. The potential to find one’s soul mate is tempered with the reality of life and everything it has to offer. Not every love is fulfilling or comes with a happily ever after.
Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley
Reviewed by Sandy
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Sarah Jio is the New York Times bestselling author of THE LAST CAMELLIA, BLACKBERRY WINTER, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH (a Library Journal Best Book of 2011), THE BUNGALOW, and the forthcoming, MORNING GLORY (11/26/13), all from Penguin/Plume. Sarah is also the former health and fitness blogger for Glamour.com. She has written thousands of articles for national magazines including Redbook, O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, SELF, Real Simple, Fitness, Marie Claire, and many others. She has appeared as a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition. Sarah lives in Seattle with her husband and their three young boys.
