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Review: Love Lessons, by Heidi Cullinan
Sep. 5th, 2014 06:22 pmJust recently, I was having a conversation with a friend about how a genuinely interesting goodhearted hero is arguably more difficult to write than a snarky antihero protagonist. A lot of authors take the lazy route, assuming that a goodhearted person is goodhearted simply because that's the socially-rewarded role-of-least-resistance, writing them as thuddingly earnest and frankly simple. But lately, even the snarky antihero has lately become something of a shortcut; with times so cynicism-inducing, why would anyone with an ounce of sense risk vulnerability by being genuine with others?
The impressive part about Heidi Cullinan's Love Lessons isn't so much that she pairs two characters based on these respective tropes together - "opposites attract" is a well-worn path in romance. What makes it work, and elevates it a cut above a lot of romances, is how thoroughly she understands these characters, and brings them to full dimensionality. Kelly is the naive boy who wants the storybook romance, and Walter is the overexperienced young man jaded about relationships, but there's so much more to their backgrounds and desires and needs (both conscious and subconscious) that to describe them that way feels almost insultingly reductive. Even better, neither is judged or mocked (by the narrative or by each other) for their personal preferences. Getting to know them, and watching them find their way to each other, is an unmitigated delight; and the resulting emotional ballast gives several scenes that could easily have been sappy a real punch.
Structurally, this book is a bit of a mess. The building-tension in the first half plays out effectively and well; but once they get together, the plot feels like it founders more than a little. I think I get what the author was trying to do here, facing them both with their most deep-seated fears and giving them the choice to either retreat into themselves or do some painful growing-up together; but it felt a little like she was too attached to them to really be cruel. Punches are pulled, difficult parts glossed over, and the ending (and especially the epilogue) robbed of the emotional weight that characterized the first half.
I feel like I should be bothered by the structural issues more, and if I were trying to be objective, this would probably be a three-star book. But ultimately, I, too, liked Walter and Kelly too much to be sad that they were being spared some pain. B+
The impressive part about Heidi Cullinan's Love Lessons isn't so much that she pairs two characters based on these respective tropes together - "opposites attract" is a well-worn path in romance. What makes it work, and elevates it a cut above a lot of romances, is how thoroughly she understands these characters, and brings them to full dimensionality. Kelly is the naive boy who wants the storybook romance, and Walter is the overexperienced young man jaded about relationships, but there's so much more to their backgrounds and desires and needs (both conscious and subconscious) that to describe them that way feels almost insultingly reductive. Even better, neither is judged or mocked (by the narrative or by each other) for their personal preferences. Getting to know them, and watching them find their way to each other, is an unmitigated delight; and the resulting emotional ballast gives several scenes that could easily have been sappy a real punch.
Structurally, this book is a bit of a mess. The building-tension in the first half plays out effectively and well; but once they get together, the plot feels like it founders more than a little. I think I get what the author was trying to do here, facing them both with their most deep-seated fears and giving them the choice to either retreat into themselves or do some painful growing-up together; but it felt a little like she was too attached to them to really be cruel. Punches are pulled, difficult parts glossed over, and the ending (and especially the epilogue) robbed of the emotional weight that characterized the first half.
I feel like I should be bothered by the structural issues more, and if I were trying to be objective, this would probably be a three-star book. But ultimately, I, too, liked Walter and Kelly too much to be sad that they were being spared some pain. B+
