Book Review: Louise Leverett’s LOVE and Other Things to Live For

[Ad-Gifted] Here’s our book review of LOVE And Other Things to Live For by Louise Leverett.

Reading the blurb I was really convinced that this book was for me, it talked about Jessica who has a dream to become a photographer and is stuck in a life she thinks she wants, but is wondering if she may have another path that she could now take. In the book, you are taken on a journey through part of her life, where you meet her friends and her loves. The focus is mainly on blips that occur through each of the characters lives in the book and how it begins to shape them as people. Without giving too much away the story has several points within it that are actually quite sad, and these points affect the paths that the characters take, some of which are interesting others of which are confusing and some that really are quite touching. The strength of friendship is pushed throughout the story and you really get a sense of how much each of the characters mean to each other.

What did I think about Louise Leverett’s LOVE and Other Things to Live For?

Reading the first few pages of the book, I slowly came to realise that the book perhaps wasn’t the style I would normally read.  Leverett is extremely descriptive about the simplest of situations, and for me this was too much. I struggled to concentrate on the actual narrative as I was often distracted by the descriptions. That being said someone who likes to soak into the atmosphere that the author is trying to create may have a different opinion.

I did enjoy the characters within the book, they each had their moment to shine, and each was interesting enough to hear about dotted throughout the story, however, unfortunately, their stories were each so short that it was hard to really understand the importance of why they were put into the book – its almost as though maybe sometimes their stories were add ons to the main story, which perhaps at times wasn’t as interesting as the other side characters stories. The lead character Jessica was ok, but her tale, which was obviously supposed to be the anchor narrative but in my opinion wasn’t really interesting enough.

Leverett did show throughout the book that there is much more of a focus of the love we acquire through friendships rather than just our partners, which I thought was a great concept or way of approaching life. We so often don’t put the people that mean the most to us first and I felt that this is what she was trying to imply within her novel. So although this book wasn’t for me, I am sensitive towards what I feel the author was trying to portray in her message for love – that there really are other things to live for – and that each person has their own path.

If you like the idea of a book on friendship, and a muddle of stories collated together, then you will like this and can get the book here.

Louise Leverett graduated from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London on a full scholarship before moving on to study at the Lee Strasberg Institute of Film in New York. Having initially gone down the route of acting she actually was driven to follow her creative passion in writing which is how she came about doing this book. I admire her drive to have worked so hard within her acting and then to go on and set up her own film production company ‘Rock the Tribes’. Her hope is for her novels to be adapted onto the screen, which I could see even with this book.

Review by: Lex Ward

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* We were given a copy of the book in return for a feature. All opinions are our own.