The After section was just as compelling. I was so curious to see what would happen to Ash, how the reapers worked and if she'd find Poppy again. I loved these characters so much. The ending was equally sad as the rest of this, but no other ending would've fit for this book. Make sure you read the author's note too because it made everything even MORE emotional. I definitely want to read Byrne's other work after this. All of a sudden, this quirky adorable romance becomes a rushed attempt at exploring our relationship with, well, life and it’s fragility. Here one minute, could be gone the next— all very They Both Die At The End but make it British Lesbians.

There was something about this emotional crossover that had always stayed with me,” he adds. “The question of what is left of yourself when you change yourself and revolve so much around someone else. When that person leaves or dies, how do we begin to recalibrate and find our sense of self again?” Making this film allowed my dormant trauma to find an outlet and purpose Aleem Khan I can’t help but think that if I had read this book as a teenager, when my problems seemed never-ending, perhaps my life would have been different. The representation of a healthy relationship between two teenage girls is something that I missed, but I’m glad that many other teenagers will now be able to read this story and feel heard. They will be able to hold onto this book when things are difficult for them. This is the main reason I have felt this book so close to my heart and why I would recommend it to everyone who has experienced growing up as a queer teenager. Noelle Stout presents a rich ethnographic description of queer life in post-Soviet Cuba, with an emphasis on the ways in which Cuba’s large-scale changes have transformed intimacy." — Heidi Harkonen, Suomen Antropologi It's "just" a sentence, but it has a big meaning. There are women who don't have vaginas - and to exclude them from your definition of being a lesbian is and will always be transphobic. A lot of themes are explored in Love After Love with love being the grounding theme. Persaud showcase the different forms of love and the different ways we love or show love. I have to admit, I enjoyed hearing from a 40 year old women about what it is like dating at that age in Trinidad and Tobago- it was so well done and I find we don’t read a lot about “older” Caribbean women dating and finding love. There is the theme of friendship and what that "should" look like, and I felt Persaud did just a spectacular job of taking us into a real genuine friendship between Betty and Mr. Chetan- I think that was so well explored and I wanted more of it.My only criticism is that I’d have liked to see more of Ash’s grief for her family and best friend after her death. There is an initial moment of grief but it’s almost forgotten and considering how much time we spent with Ash’s family in the first part of the book, it felt a bit abrupt for them to barely cross Ash’s mind again.

I was careless. I'd left the rolling pin on the drain board. Easy reach of Sunil's chair. That rolling pin might have hit the wall, or the bed, or the chair. But it found me. Doctor said the ulna and the radius snapped in two. My arm was in a cast when we buried Sunil a week later.I loved that Tanya separated the novel into two parts; Before,which allowed us to see the development of Ash and Poppy’s relationship, and then, After,which is once Ash has died, making the resulting grief all the more heart-breaking. Set mostly in Trinidad and Tobago, this novel sits somewhere between a character study and a travel guide. The central theme, as the title suggests, is Love. Both the evolving bonds of familial and platonic love that the characters have for one another as well as their efforts to seek romantic love and all the complications that often entails (sometimes you do wonder if you stumbled into steamy tropical romance novel). If you have read teen romance or contemporary novels before, you will probably find yourself, like me, predicting most of the plot. But the sweet and beautiful romance is so worth the journey that it’s almost nice not to have any nasty surprises along the way. Byrne’s writing is flowery and perhaps a little excessive for some, yet I only found that it spoke to me, and reminded me of the way I enjoy writing: lots of dramatic metaphors and romanticism.