LOOK OF LOVE
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.
★★☆☆☆
Jane Williams owns a flower shop in Pike Place marketplace in Seattle. Her love life is often messy or dried up at best, and whenever she gets around couples truly in love, she suffers major migraine attacks. The migraine attacks have actually plagued her her entire life, making her well acquainted with the neurology department of local hospitals. On her 29th birthday, answers to some of her troubles comes from a surprising and mysterious source.
On her birthday, Jane receives a birthday card from Collette, who quickly opens with explaining that she knows they've never met but she has an important reason for writing. Collette first met Jane on the day Jane was born. Collette transferred a special gift to the newborn: the ability to literally see true love. Anyone with this gift has the trait of having vibrant green eyes. Collette asks Jane to meet her in person so that she can continue the story in more detail, because the gift comes with an important task which must be completed by the recipient's 30th birthday.
Jane arranges to meet Collette face-to-face, where she's given the rest of the story -- how the gift originated with a French flower cart girl in 1893, what the task part of the gift entails, and what it means for Jane if she fails to complete that task. Jane must identify the six types of love and write the examples of each in a book that's been passed down through the generations of women with this gift. Should she fail to record the full six types before her 30th, Jane will be doomed to never have her love towards others reciprocated.
Shortly after this meeting, Jane's brother introduces her to a friend of his, Cameron "Cam" Collins, a medical journalist for TIME magazine. There's immediately something between them. Calling it a romantic spark might be a bit generous, but they definitely fall into easy conversation pretty much from the get-go. Just Jane's luck though --- when she starts to talk about her gift, Cam pretty quickly makes it clear he's not much of a believer in frilly notions like "soulmates", "love at first sight" etc. While he does believe in love existing, he sees it more as a deliberate choice one makes, combined with natural chemical reactions of the brain. All perfectly explainable with science and reason. But the more time he spends around Jane, witnessing her migraine spells for himself (and who happens to be in her presence when they come on)... he begins to question his stance just a little bit... slowly, grudgingly giving Jane the benefit of a doubt.
The unions / couplings the plot focuses on (I had to write them down to keep the rotating storylines straight while reading):
* Developing feelings between Jane & Cam
* Jane's employee, Lo + Grant (not technically divorced from wife)
* Elaine (one of Jane's best friends) + husband Matthew... but also the new neighbor, Charles, she finds herself maybe falling for
* Flynn (Jane's brother) + mystery woman who lives in building across from him, he watches her from his window but is hesitant to introduce himself
* Mary (hair stylist) + musician husband Eli
* Engaged couple Katie + Josh
* Dr. Amy Heller (Jane's neurologist) + colleague Dr. Wyatt (her secret interest in him)
* Mel (runs local newsstand) and Vivian, a prickly sometimes-patron he admires from afar
"The Look of Love"
(the song that inspired the novel)
Check out that list of characters. Did I mention this book is UNDER 300 pages?! Lordy!
The story concept is cute and the setting (Seattle) is fun, but the novel as a whole really suffers from being poorly plotted out. The characters themselves aren't entirely terrible, but the dialogue they're given gets increasingly sappy and cringey as the story progresses... yet the romances for the most part end up feeling pretty unrealistic. They're either noticeably underdeveloped or taken into over-the-top melodramatic territory.
* Lo, talking to her love interest, says lines like "the love we're forging". GAG.
* Cam, on his first date with Jane, shares story of his late wife's passing, closing with "It's important you know the circumstances that molded me." Bit heavy for a first date, don't you think?!
* The voyeur-style business between Flynn and mystery woman just turns stupid towards the end. You spend that much money on flip paper boards and all that --- JUST WRITE OUT A PHONE NUMBER, TWITTER HANDLE, SOMETHING, AND GET THE INTRO STARTED ALREADY.
*And then there's the husband who wakes up to his wife one day, saying "I could never get tired of this face," and then walks out on her that day with no explanation. Then we get an explanation down the road and things turn full-on Days of Our Lives ridiculous.
Though much of the book might've been problematic
for me, this part did pull an "aawww"
outta me.
And the whole thing about Jane working on documenting the six types of love? Yeah, the reader is never let in on that process. It gets almost zero mention for most of the story, until at the end when Jane magically has all the answers she needs tidily brought together, giving the impression she's been working on it this whole time.
It started out so promising, but by the end I was left so exasperated with this mess of a story that while I've certainly heard rave reviews of Jio's writing for years, this experience has left me little inclination to rush out for any more of her books anytime soon.
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