4 Reasons to Fall for Jennifer Weiner’s Who Do You Love
Jennifer Weiner, Bachelor/Bachelorette aficionado (follow her on Twitter for the “Will you accept this rose?” play by play) and bestselling author of fiction, including In Her Shoes and All Fall Down, nails it once again with her 12th book, Who Do You Love. It in this case being writing an engaging book with beautifully flawed (i.e., human) and relatable characters, who are given second chances at love and life.
Rachel Blum and Andy Landis are only 8 years old when they first meet in a hospital waiting room one night. Rachel, born with a congenital heart defect, has been in and out of hospitals her whole life and is people watching in the ER when Andy comes in with a broken arm and no parent. She distracts him from the pain by telling him a story, but after Andy’s mother arrives, Rachel is ushered back to her room by a nurse. The two think they’ll never see each other again, but over the next three decades they continue to cross paths.
Who Do You Love (Signed Book)
Hardcover
$17.30
$27.00
Who Do You Love (Signed Book)
Hardcover
$17.30
$27.00
The book alternates between Rachel’s and Andy’s stories as they grow up—Rachel with her Jewish family in an affluent suburb in Florida and Andy, who is half African American, half white, and feels like he belongs nowhere, with his single mom in a poor area of Philadelphia. Who Do You Love isn’t just a love story, though. It’s about how people change and grow separately and together, and how a chance encounter can alter the course of one’s life.
Check out our reasons to add Weiner’s latest to your must-read list.
It reminds us that “chick lit” can encompass many things. “Chick lit” can be a lazy designation, and is often slapped on books that are neither breezy nor mindless, featuring characters that don’t fit into a pretty little mold. There are some really serious elements to this story: Rachel grows up scarred, with an oxygen tank often nearby, and parents who live in fear that their daughter won’t live to see her own bat mitzvah. Andy has to deal with the rage and confusion that comes from being bullied at school for being poor, biracial, and not having a father around—not to mention the complicated feelings around his bond with his single mother, who keeps him isolated so that she’s the only one he has, and vice versa. This book is anything but unserious.
It’s a slow burn that spans 30 years, and the build makes the journey well worth it for readers. Hearing that a book covers three decades of two people’s lives could be enough to make even the biggest book lovers yawn in anticipation, but the years fly by in Weiner’s Who Do You Love. And you seriously need all of that time and background information about Andy and Rachel in order to understand where they’re coming from and where they’re going (and with whom …). Real love doesn’t happen in an instant, and neither does the relationship between Andy and Rachel. Following their courtship through its fits and starts is a big part of what makes this read such a page-turner.
The sex scenes are pretty darn sexy. Finding a book with realistic but still sexy love scenes can be tough. Often, they’re either needlessly pornographic, or weirdly vague in a “camera cutaway to the bedroom’s blowing curtains as the female lead and her beloved lock eyes” sort of way. But not Weiner’s (and yes, if you don’t know the proper pronunciation of the author’s name, that sentence does sound vaguely pornographic itself). In Who Do You Love, Weiner even tackles a first-time sexual encounter, and manages to capture the awkwardness and excitement in a realistic (yet sexy) way.
Fictional characters—they’re just like us! Weiner is a master at creating perfectly imperfect characters (and not just because, as tabloids tell us about celebs, “They like lettuce!” or “They tie their shoes!”). Rachel makes a mistake—a pretty big one—in front of Andy when they’re teenagers, and it almost ends their relationship before it even begins. Andy, meanwhile, makes a mistake as a tween that changes the course of his entire life. These characters have major scars, flaws, and strengths, just like the rest of us. And reading their story proves that happiness is possible even for those of us who feel the most broken.
Who Do You Love is out August 11.
The book alternates between Rachel’s and Andy’s stories as they grow up—Rachel with her Jewish family in an affluent suburb in Florida and Andy, who is half African American, half white, and feels like he belongs nowhere, with his single mom in a poor area of Philadelphia. Who Do You Love isn’t just a love story, though. It’s about how people change and grow separately and together, and how a chance encounter can alter the course of one’s life.
Check out our reasons to add Weiner’s latest to your must-read list.
It reminds us that “chick lit” can encompass many things. “Chick lit” can be a lazy designation, and is often slapped on books that are neither breezy nor mindless, featuring characters that don’t fit into a pretty little mold. There are some really serious elements to this story: Rachel grows up scarred, with an oxygen tank often nearby, and parents who live in fear that their daughter won’t live to see her own bat mitzvah. Andy has to deal with the rage and confusion that comes from being bullied at school for being poor, biracial, and not having a father around—not to mention the complicated feelings around his bond with his single mother, who keeps him isolated so that she’s the only one he has, and vice versa. This book is anything but unserious.
It’s a slow burn that spans 30 years, and the build makes the journey well worth it for readers. Hearing that a book covers three decades of two people’s lives could be enough to make even the biggest book lovers yawn in anticipation, but the years fly by in Weiner’s Who Do You Love. And you seriously need all of that time and background information about Andy and Rachel in order to understand where they’re coming from and where they’re going (and with whom …). Real love doesn’t happen in an instant, and neither does the relationship between Andy and Rachel. Following their courtship through its fits and starts is a big part of what makes this read such a page-turner.
The sex scenes are pretty darn sexy. Finding a book with realistic but still sexy love scenes can be tough. Often, they’re either needlessly pornographic, or weirdly vague in a “camera cutaway to the bedroom’s blowing curtains as the female lead and her beloved lock eyes” sort of way. But not Weiner’s (and yes, if you don’t know the proper pronunciation of the author’s name, that sentence does sound vaguely pornographic itself). In Who Do You Love, Weiner even tackles a first-time sexual encounter, and manages to capture the awkwardness and excitement in a realistic (yet sexy) way.
Fictional characters—they’re just like us! Weiner is a master at creating perfectly imperfect characters (and not just because, as tabloids tell us about celebs, “They like lettuce!” or “They tie their shoes!”). Rachel makes a mistake—a pretty big one—in front of Andy when they’re teenagers, and it almost ends their relationship before it even begins. Andy, meanwhile, makes a mistake as a tween that changes the course of his entire life. These characters have major scars, flaws, and strengths, just like the rest of us. And reading their story proves that happiness is possible even for those of us who feel the most broken.
Who Do You Love is out August 11.