In Memoriam by Alice Winn

In Memoriam is the kind of book that makes you appreciate art and understand why books, particularly fiction, are so important in helping us see what we ourselves did not ever live.

There’s a line in Emma where Jane Austen writes, “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” And that’s kinda how I feel about this book. In between the haunting violence of war, Winn would deliver a line that was so disarmingly beautiful, so eerily sad, and so heartbreakingly true that I had to close the book for a second and just take it in.

The non-stop chaos of World War I is contrasted sharply by what is slowly simmering and slipping away between Gaunt and Ellwood. I have never been so invested in two characters. The way they would subtly or even overtly express their feelings yet it would never be interpreted as they wanted it to…I was in agony!

Overall, it’s such a compelling story that reveals how love can transform yet stay fixed even in the worst of circumstances and what it means to love — even when it’s imperfect or intolerable or unreciprocated.

I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

6/5 bawled my eyes out