How to Love

by Katie Cotugno

[Leah]

I’ve just finished reading How To Love by Katie Cotugno and its a novel that almost slipped through the cracks! It’s been on my Kindle a little while but I didn’t pay any attention to what it was, until I saw it on Amazon with its pretty cover and wonderful sounding synopsis so when I was looking for a new read and happened upon a novel called How To Love, I decided to have a read and realised it was the same novel as the one I’d been looking at on Amazon and decided I just had to read it!

How To Love is an amazing novel – it’s a love story, yep, but it isn’t all roses and butterflies, it isn’t a perfect love story as you expect a love story to go; Sawyer and Reena’s love story is real, proper and spans a few years, though ultimately the pay off is more than worth the wait. Reena has loved Sawyer ever since she can remember – they’ve known each other for years, but he left her in the dark a few years ago after a brief fling. Now he’s back, and Reena can hardly believe it. There’s a bit of a sticky wicket though because Reena has a daughter, Hannah, and she’s most definitely Sawyer’s, and he wants to be part of her life, but Reena isn’t sure she can trust him as far as she can throw him and if these two crazy kids are ever going to make it work, they have a lot of making up to do!

How To Love was really amazing, I loved the characters, the plot, the writing… The unique thing about this novel, apart from one of the most realistic love stories ever, is the novel is written with alternate ‘before’ and ‘after’ chapters, detailing how Reena and Sawyer’s story began back when Reena was 16 and how her life is now, with Hannah at 18. I actually found it so hard to believe Reena was only 18 – she seemed so grown up and I’d have put her early twenties at least! Sawyer, though, I know he did wrong and I know he wasn’t perfect but I loved him so much! He lit up the novel like he lit up Reena’s life. I really liked him, despite his faults.

I love how How To Love took something as simple as a love story and made it into one of my favourite reads so far this year. As the book shows, not all love stories have to be pretty and perfect to be love stories. This was messy, lives fell apart because of it, relationships faltered, someone even died, and I think that’s what made it all the more amazing. Despite the fact Sawyer left for so long, there was always that familiarity between him and Reena, that almost inevitability that these two belonged together and you rooted for them to make it work! It was simply amazing, and I implore you to read it. I can’t wait for what’s next from Katie Cotugno because this was so amazing!