Out of Love (Book Review)

Out of Love by Hazel Hayes

384 pages | Fiction, Contemporary Romance

The story was told in reverse, which used a technique called reverse chronology (I just found out the term too). It started with the couple breaking up and ended at the first time they met. It brings you back to the journey of their shared past, their bittersweet memories together.

As their past unraveled, we could actually pinpoint the bleak sides of their relationship. I mean, it is always easier to see things from the eyes of an outsider. But just like how she said,

“What I fail to figure out is that Theo has issues of his own, maybe not as severe as mine, but enough to make him unstable and ill-equipped to cope with life. We are both wounded in our own way and, like a pair of tectonic plates shifting over time, our wounds will gradually grate against one another’s, causing damage at a glacial pace. Neither one of us will notice until it’s too late.”

 I do not think I am the right one to talk about break ups but, when it happens, it breaks us, slowly or almost instantly. This surely not only applies to romantic relationships, but all kinds of it. Like those friendships that seemed to fade away over time without us actually being able to tell why. We feel desperate to find people to blame before we started mulling over the real causes of it. Or we might fall voluntarily into empty action, the result of being in denial, hopping aimlessly from one person to another, before we reached at one point when we felt we finally had enough with the fakery of our own, and started to own our life back.  

It always requires time for us to heal, especially from those we treasured dearly.

And just like how we are able to fall in love, we too, can fall out of it. (okay, to some degrees, this line surprisingly brings comfort).

We are able to heal, just like how we are able to feel pain.   

I like the author’s writing style, somehow, it really stands out to me. Her language is neatly put which is beautiful and pleasurable to read, yet does not feel awkwardly controlled or rigid. Just like how I prefer it to be.

Some might ask why I read this book in the first place, when the ending is already being disclosed. Other than because of my fondness for sad books, it was actually because I found a short review online, saying, reading this book will help to fill the empty space caused by Normal People. It did stir me up, made me so keen to find out why the person wrote that (it is considerably a big statement to make), even though, deep down, I knew the longing I felt after finishing Normal People could never be recompensed. I would love to write a separate review on Normal People but I am afraid I could never find the right words to say how much I loved it.