Book Review: Love Will Tear Us Apart by Holly Seddon

Published: 07/6/2018 by Corvus
300 pages
Format: Kindle

Fearing eternal singledom, childhood friends Kate and Paul make the age-old vow that if they don’t find love by thirty, they will marry each other.

Years later, with the deadline of their 30th birthdays approaching, the unlikely couple decide to keep their teenage promise. After all, they are such good friends. Surely that’s enough to make a marriage?

Now, on the eve of their 10th wedding anniversary, they will discover that love between men and women is more complex, and more precarious, than they could ever have imagined. As Kate struggles with a secret that reaches far into their past, will the couple’s vow become the very thing that threatens their future?

Love Will Tear Us Apart is a moving and heart-breaking exploration of modern love and friendship, from the bestselling author of Try Not to Breathe.

Story of modern love and friendship and how those two things can easily work together, or can they?

Two childhood friends, that mean everything to each other, make a vow to get married if they are still single at age of 30. Sounds like something you could do? Yes, I guess, I could. I know better than anyone that we go through many low stages in our lives and sometimes we lose hope, so yes, it’s definitely very believable.

We follow two timelines, one of Kate and Paul being children and becoming adults, making and losing friends, dealing with grief, just like anyone else does. They become a strong unit and spend most of the time in each others company. They are completely comfortable and happy around each other. The second timeline follows married life of Kate and Paul, leading up to their 10 year anniversary. Here we find out that Kate is hiding a letter that will decide their future. Big secret hidden away from her for years is about to come out. Kate and Paul are like any other parents dealing with regular parenting issues and raising their two kids, we can feel there is tension and maybe their love is not as strong as it used to be, if it was a real love to start with…

The story was enjoyable but very slow pacing for me. The only ‘exciting’ part was waiting to find out what the letter held but finding out felt slightly anti-climatic to be fair. I struggled through out the book with its gloomy feel and just general unhappiness and sadness. Maybe that’s what it was meant to feel like but for me it was quite hard to keep reading, I wanted to see just a bit of laugh and happy moments. However last few chapters really picked it up for me and enjoyed revelations between Kate and Paul and even made me a bit teary.

The book was very well written and although it didn’t work for me, it can certainly work for someone who could relate to the story better. If you enjoy reading about people’s relationships and overcoming hurdles in their life in their search for happiness, I’m sure you will enjoy this book.

Love Will Tear Us Apart is being published on 7th June 2018 and can be pre-ordered/purchased here.