I'm not sure where I heard about this book, but it was somewhere because I put it in my hold at the library. But then I promptly forgot about it until it arrived and I was left to wonder... where did I hear about this book? The description didn't even seem familiar. But then I started reading it and realized it must have been from this list of books I found that realistically portray love. And that's exactly what this book did. That's all it did. It was the story of a girl, Lucy, and a boy. Gabe, who meet at the end of college, lose touch, find each other again, fall in love, and are then separated by their respective dreams; she to produce children's television in New York and he to Iraq, then Afghanistan, and a bevvy of other places as a photojournalist.

So they break up, but never quite forget each other as they proceed with their lives and become involved with other people. I think this is where it lost the people it lost. I read quite a few reviews that took issue with the lead character having essentially an emotional affair for the entirety of her marriage. They complained that Darren, the husband, wasn't enough of a villain. And maybe he wasn't. Lucy gets a very comfortable life with her well off husband, two lovely kids, huge apartment in Brooklyn, vacations in the Hamptons. Everything is great on paper. But paper isn't reality and I felt like Darren's good qualities were what made Lucy's dissatisfaction interesting. There are ones that get away and sometimes it's just not easy to disentangle your heart from someone with whom a relationships is all but impossible. And I'll just go ahead and say, to me, despite all the amenities, Darren would be my nightmare. He has that sort of alpha male, "I will provide and you will be MY wife" bullshit that I couldn't put up with. And Lucy clearly feels the same way. She repeatedly tells me that she wants to be included in decisions and not be surprised with elaborate surprises and yet he persists. He clearly feels she should be the caretaker of the children even if he "allows" her to work. All of it is subtle but Lucy takes pause several times before dismissing these things. It seemed, more, like she was convincing herself into her life than anything else. I don't think this marriage is a good one even if she wasn't in love with someone else. Which she is, so there's that.

I thought this book was lovely. It wasn't entirely straightforward or completely moral, but it was true. And for me that's the best thing a book can be.