What does it mean to love and be loved?
It is the 1980s and Finn and Keely are growing up in the North East of England.
Keely is a fighter. Even in the face of loss she strives to seek connection, but finds that she’s not always searching in the right places.
Finn is quiet, sensitive, distant. He spends much of his time alone, yet deep down he wants to discover the thrill of relating to others.
When the two finally meet, everything is changed. Love – with all of its attendant joys and costs – is thrust upon them, and each must decide if they will bend or break under its pressure. True Love is a story of the trials of youth, the bonds of family and friendship, and of how much we are willing to risk to have ourselves be seen.
True Love by Paddy Crewe was published on 4 July 2024 by Doubleday. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour
True Love by Paddy Crewe has catapulted itself right in to my list of favourite books ever. This is a story that I went in to almost blind, having read the blurb, but not really knowing what to expect.
It is astonishing. It feels like the perfect book. A story about true love in all of its many forms; a story of two individual, very different people who do not even meet until towards the end of the book but we, the reader, know that their relationship is inevitable.
Paddy Crewe is an extraordinary writer. His beautiful prose totally captivated me throughout the novel. He writes about ordinary people who lead lives that are filled with pain, he gets to the heart of what true love is. Love can be damaging, toxic, beautiful, exciting. It can be brutal and heartbreaking. The love for family members differs from the love we feel for members of our immediate community, and romantic love is absolutely another experience.
Told from the point of view of two lead characters; Keely and Fin. Their stories are told separately, each one given their own part of the book. Keely is a young girl who lives in a caravan on a site by the sea, her father is a sea coaler, her mother is dead. Keely has a younger brother, Welty, she cares for him. Their father does care, but he too is broken and struggles to express his feelings. When the tragedy that will shape Keely's life forever happens, her life changes. She leaves school, she starts to gather sea coal, she becomes more insular, thinner, her spark goes out.
It is astonishing. It feels like the perfect book. A story about true love in all of its many forms; a story of two individual, very different people who do not even meet until towards the end of the book but we, the reader, know that their relationship is inevitable.
Paddy Crewe is an extraordinary writer. His beautiful prose totally captivated me throughout the novel. He writes about ordinary people who lead lives that are filled with pain, he gets to the heart of what true love is. Love can be damaging, toxic, beautiful, exciting. It can be brutal and heartbreaking. The love for family members differs from the love we feel for members of our immediate community, and romantic love is absolutely another experience.
Told from the point of view of two lead characters; Keely and Fin. Their stories are told separately, each one given their own part of the book. Keely is a young girl who lives in a caravan on a site by the sea, her father is a sea coaler, her mother is dead. Keely has a younger brother, Welty, she cares for him. Their father does care, but he too is broken and struggles to express his feelings. When the tragedy that will shape Keely's life forever happens, her life changes. She leaves school, she starts to gather sea coal, she becomes more insular, thinner, her spark goes out.
She does discover books, and Crewe's explanation of just what reading means to Keely really touched me, I felt it so much, it could have been written just for me;
Keeley finds herself living alone. She has no contact with her dad and begins to find solace in the local pubs and the bottom of a glass.
Finn has lived with his grandparents for his whole life. His parents are never mentioned, he knows nothing of them, of where they are, why they left him. He is loved, but finds it very difficult to express his own love. Speaking very few words, he suffers the anguish of being bullied by his peers. Until the day that he finds music and suddenly his voice is being heard.
"She can't imagine her life without books and she thanks Miss Collins every day for dropping that first bag off outside the caravan. She doesn't know how else she would fill her time, or what could possibly feel as satisfying. She is filled up by words. Whatever pain she suffers in her own life, the characters she reads about set to replenishing her, all of which has led her to treat books with a reverence that she affords nothing else. They are sacred to her, and though in her care they all wind up dog-eared, with pages folded down and spines cracked, she would mourn one if it was ever lost or damaged beyond use."
Keeley finds herself living alone. She has no contact with her dad and begins to find solace in the local pubs and the bottom of a glass.
Finn has lived with his grandparents for his whole life. His parents are never mentioned, he knows nothing of them, of where they are, why they left him. He is loved, but finds it very difficult to express his own love. Speaking very few words, he suffers the anguish of being bullied by his peers. Until the day that he finds music and suddenly his voice is being heard.
It is a given that these two damaged yet incredibly intelligent people will meet and discover their own form of true love. It is an intense relationship, both of them wary, yet at the same time, exposing everything about themselves and it feels as though this frenzy of a relationship will always continue.
But True Love is painful and they both cause pain and feel pain. Pain that hurts so much that they can not get over it and once more, they become individuals, having to find their own paths, deal with their own lives. They have to survive.
I didn't read Paddy Crewe's first novel; My Name Is Yip, which won so many awards, but I am most certainly going to change that now. This author has created two characters that became part of my existence whilst I was reading about them. I cared about them so much, I felt their pain, I shared in their joys, I almost mourned them when I turned the final page. This is utterly remarkable and highly recommended by me.
But True Love is painful and they both cause pain and feel pain. Pain that hurts so much that they can not get over it and once more, they become individuals, having to find their own paths, deal with their own lives. They have to survive.
I didn't read Paddy Crewe's first novel; My Name Is Yip, which won so many awards, but I am most certainly going to change that now. This author has created two characters that became part of my existence whilst I was reading about them. I cared about them so much, I felt their pain, I shared in their joys, I almost mourned them when I turned the final page. This is utterly remarkable and highly recommended by me.
His debut novel, My Name Is Yip, has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, a South Bank Sky Arts Award and the Society of Authors First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.
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