Does anyone have a recommendation for a book that makes you believe in love? A romantic novel? Anything you've read, even something comical would be GREAT but still holds true to that subject? Thanks!
Anonymous
Favorite Answer
Hmm, The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, water for elephants, loving frank are the only ones I can think of for romantic love. Personally I find romance novels so ridiculously unrealistic that they don't you make you believe in anything, least of all love. I think the best novels are not necessarily about romantic love but about love that exists in other relationships. Harry Potter is about so much more than a boy wizard. The Red Tent is about the bonds that women can form in a male dominated society. Many of John Irving's novels are about love that is found outside the romantic realm, about love that doesn't conform to the socially acceptable definition but is equally meaningful regardless.
Courtney
This book is sort of a historical fiction, but it absolutely made me believe in love!
Here Be Dragons, by Sharon Kay Penman. It's not actually a romance novel, but I think that's what makes it better. The romance is just there, and it fits perfectly with the rest of the book. The woman in the book is married off to her father's enemy as part of a peace treaty. She falls in love with her husband, and ends up torn between her love for her father and love for her husband. That's just a small part. It's a good book.
reader
The book of which this is most true for me is a little known novel by Laurie Colwin called Happy All the Time. It is in no way saccharine or trite but does manage to live up to its title. It has great, quirky characters and love stories that are believable yet truly heartening. This book never fails to make me feel better about life and love. Here's the amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Happy-All-Time-Laurie-Colwin/dp/B000ENBQWY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204177440&sr=1-1
Anonymous
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
Any poems by e.e. cummings
schizometric
Love in the Time of Cholera is a masterpiece- but beware! it's not a tacky romance novel, it's respectable literature.
It's about the real deal and the tragedy that comes with loving so much that it hurts, blinds, and even redeems love itself. It gets much more realistic as the characters age.. Marquez writes with such longing and melancholy that it makes you ache.