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Notes on Heartbreak
Win a free print copy of this book!
21 days and 23:37:41
25 copies available
U.S. only
Fierce, funny and raw, this unflinchingly honest exploration of heartbreak is so much more than a book about one single break-up
This is a love story told in reverse. It's about the best and worst of love: the euphoric and the painful. The beautiful and the messy.
Reeling from a broken heart, Annie Lord revisits the past - from the moment she first fell in love, the shared in-jokes and intertwining of a long-term relationship, to the months that saw the slow erosion of a bond five years in the making.
It is an unflinchingly honest reminder of the simultaneous joy and pain of being in love that will resonate with anyone that has ever nursed a broken heart.
This is a love story told in reverse. It's about the best and worst of love: the euphoric and the painful. The beautiful and the messy.
Reeling from a broken heart, Annie Lord revisits the past - from the moment she first fell in love, the shared in-jokes and intertwining of a long-term relationship, to the months that saw the slow erosion of a bond five years in the making.
It is an unflinchingly honest reminder of the simultaneous joy and pain of being in love that will resonate with anyone that has ever nursed a broken heart.
400 pages, Paperback
First published June 23, 2022
790 people are currently reading
40771 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,442 reviews
September 26, 2024
Fucking read this. Okay?
August 11, 2022
Annie Lord nails down the heartbreak experience like no other and I think this is an extremely comforting read for people going through it, as I currently am. It helps knowing you’re not the only one with those feelings that make you feel so pathetic sometimes (and knowing there’s light at the end of the tunnel, well, sort of). Reading this felt like talking to a friend, like complaining together about the pain of heartbreak, sobbing over a glass wine in self-pity about how unfair it all is, but also shaking each other out of it, knowing that even if romantic love ends, there will always be people that love you outside of that.
May 29, 2025
One of the best things about being a book reviewer is receiving books from publishers that I would not normally have chosen for myself. Books that wouldn’t have even been on my radar. I know a lot of reviewers who don’t like this, but for me, many of these books have turned out to be the absolute best of reads. Notes on Heartbreak is exactly one of these. It’s a memoir, I guess, which is usually a hard no from me, but then it doesn’t read like a memoir, and it doesn’t follow the usual formula for memoirs either, and in some ways, it also nudges into self-help without actually being a self-help book. It reads like a novel, which was intuitively appealing to me, at times giving me Bridget Jones feels yet knowing all the while that, unlike Bridget Jones Diary, this was all true, not made up, and all the more powerful for it. To lay yourself open like this, it’s entirely impressive, and to do so with such introspection and intelligence as well. Annie Lord can write, wow, can she ever, and this book…well, it’s affected me more than I could have ever anticipated.
It actually took me more than a week to read Notes on Heartbreak, which is quite a long time for me. I told myself it was because the book was almost four hundred pages long and I had been reading it in a week where I was working almost 38 hours and juggling way too many balls at once. Yet, I regularly work weeks like this and my whole life is about juggling, so why, with a book I was enjoying so much, was it taking me so long to read? I was definitely lingering over it and taking my time with it, because despite reading like a novel, it was still non-fiction and that, for some reason, always slows my reading down by at least twenty-five percent, at a minimum. But none of these things are why it was taking me so long. The truth of it is that this book was unstitching me, tugging at things I thought I’d dealt with and resonating with me to the point of distraction. It’s stirred up all these thoughts within me and even though I was desperate to keep reading it and just get on with it, I would dip in and out and then wander around with my thoughts for ages before repeating the process.
They say the best books are the ones that make you feel, that resonate, that reach out beyond their pages to you. I don’t know if this book will mean as much to you as it did to me. For me, it became about me, as much as it was about Annie. If you haven’t had a breakup ever, or recently, it might not be of interest at all. Or maybe, like me, you’ll think you’re over your breakup and that reading this book will be a bit of entertainment while drinking tea and taking a break from life. Maybe, like me, you will find yourself completely undone for the duration. In 2020, within the thick of Covid lockdowns, my marriage ended. It’s been almost two years now, and my life is so much better than I ever thought it would be, and despite the pain and anger that the end brought to my life, and to that of my almost adult children, I have no regrets. And yet, I still have times of crippling grief, when I have to pull my car over because I’m inexplicably crying, or my fingers go to automatically text a number that is no longer in my favourites and I feel overcome with the loss of no longer being able to do that. What I loved about Notes on Heartbreak is that as Annie discovers and shares with such a raw and unbreakable truth is that this is okay. You don’t just one day wake up over it. It’s a process and sometimes that process takes a long time, stretching even into the time when you think you’re completely fine and your heart is mostly healed.
“Perhaps no one ever forgets anyone. We keep parts of them inside us forever and they come out in the moments we need them. Like ghosts who can’t find their way to the afterlife.”
Reading this book has been so cathartic. I spent twenty-seven years in a relationship with a man who I fell in love with as a teenager, who I had three children with, who I shaped my life around. Moving on, no matter how much I wanted it, has been hard. And until reading this book I kept thinking to myself, what is wrong with you, why does this bother you still, or upset you, or hold you back…why, why, why, do you still feel anything at all about this when you wanted it so badly. Because, twenty-seven years is a long time, and despite the indifference and anger that peppered the years, that one person was, throughout, my confidant, the one who shouldered the burden of life that I couldn’t carry. He was my person. And that’s hard to let go of. I feel like reading Notes on Heartbreak has been the most effective therapy I’ve ever had. Truly. This book is an amazing gift. I love how Annie talks about moving on to someone new, how that in itself is a process. The part I love the most though is how she rediscovers herself and starts to make all these realisations about the many ways in which she lost herself and didn’t take care of herself throughout the relationship. This journey back to your own self is the part about the last two years that I have enjoyed the most and like Annie, the support of my friends along the way has been invaluable beyond words.
“I thought love had to come from a boyfriend, but you can find it in friends too. They bolster me and build me up, and being with them is like being in a support group. Like having a bunch of sponsors you can call on when they’re needed.”
I am now at the point where I consider what moving on with someone else might be like, and yet, I am also terrified of it and wonder how long it would take me to botch something new up and whether it’s even worth the risk of possible future heartache. This is okay too. I won’t always feel this way. I just need to trust the process and myself. The heart is a muscle after all, it’s strong and can withstand much, and really, if I’m lucky enough to one day find someone who it beats in time with, then that has to be worth the risk. At the end of the day, I am more in tune with myself now than I ever have been before and the power of that is phenomenal. You’ll have to forgive me for this self-indulgent ramble that is more reflective essay than book review, but before I was a reviewer, I was a writer, and sometimes certain books just bring that out in me. Notes on Heartbreak has prompted me to compile my own notes on heartbreak – and recovery. This is definitely an example of the universe handing you the right book at the right time.
“And it’s through this inner dialogue that you become conscious of yourself as someone you can talk to and have a relationship with. I look at her now in that mirror and she’s me and I am her, and although we’re the same thing I see that we can talk to each other even if I will always know what’s coming because she, her, me, is the only thing I can count on to be there for the whole of my life.”
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
#NotesonHeartbreak
It actually took me more than a week to read Notes on Heartbreak, which is quite a long time for me. I told myself it was because the book was almost four hundred pages long and I had been reading it in a week where I was working almost 38 hours and juggling way too many balls at once. Yet, I regularly work weeks like this and my whole life is about juggling, so why, with a book I was enjoying so much, was it taking me so long to read? I was definitely lingering over it and taking my time with it, because despite reading like a novel, it was still non-fiction and that, for some reason, always slows my reading down by at least twenty-five percent, at a minimum. But none of these things are why it was taking me so long. The truth of it is that this book was unstitching me, tugging at things I thought I’d dealt with and resonating with me to the point of distraction. It’s stirred up all these thoughts within me and even though I was desperate to keep reading it and just get on with it, I would dip in and out and then wander around with my thoughts for ages before repeating the process.
They say the best books are the ones that make you feel, that resonate, that reach out beyond their pages to you. I don’t know if this book will mean as much to you as it did to me. For me, it became about me, as much as it was about Annie. If you haven’t had a breakup ever, or recently, it might not be of interest at all. Or maybe, like me, you’ll think you’re over your breakup and that reading this book will be a bit of entertainment while drinking tea and taking a break from life. Maybe, like me, you will find yourself completely undone for the duration. In 2020, within the thick of Covid lockdowns, my marriage ended. It’s been almost two years now, and my life is so much better than I ever thought it would be, and despite the pain and anger that the end brought to my life, and to that of my almost adult children, I have no regrets. And yet, I still have times of crippling grief, when I have to pull my car over because I’m inexplicably crying, or my fingers go to automatically text a number that is no longer in my favourites and I feel overcome with the loss of no longer being able to do that. What I loved about Notes on Heartbreak is that as Annie discovers and shares with such a raw and unbreakable truth is that this is okay. You don’t just one day wake up over it. It’s a process and sometimes that process takes a long time, stretching even into the time when you think you’re completely fine and your heart is mostly healed.
“Perhaps no one ever forgets anyone. We keep parts of them inside us forever and they come out in the moments we need them. Like ghosts who can’t find their way to the afterlife.”
Reading this book has been so cathartic. I spent twenty-seven years in a relationship with a man who I fell in love with as a teenager, who I had three children with, who I shaped my life around. Moving on, no matter how much I wanted it, has been hard. And until reading this book I kept thinking to myself, what is wrong with you, why does this bother you still, or upset you, or hold you back…why, why, why, do you still feel anything at all about this when you wanted it so badly. Because, twenty-seven years is a long time, and despite the indifference and anger that peppered the years, that one person was, throughout, my confidant, the one who shouldered the burden of life that I couldn’t carry. He was my person. And that’s hard to let go of. I feel like reading Notes on Heartbreak has been the most effective therapy I’ve ever had. Truly. This book is an amazing gift. I love how Annie talks about moving on to someone new, how that in itself is a process. The part I love the most though is how she rediscovers herself and starts to make all these realisations about the many ways in which she lost herself and didn’t take care of herself throughout the relationship. This journey back to your own self is the part about the last two years that I have enjoyed the most and like Annie, the support of my friends along the way has been invaluable beyond words.
“I thought love had to come from a boyfriend, but you can find it in friends too. They bolster me and build me up, and being with them is like being in a support group. Like having a bunch of sponsors you can call on when they’re needed.”
I am now at the point where I consider what moving on with someone else might be like, and yet, I am also terrified of it and wonder how long it would take me to botch something new up and whether it’s even worth the risk of possible future heartache. This is okay too. I won’t always feel this way. I just need to trust the process and myself. The heart is a muscle after all, it’s strong and can withstand much, and really, if I’m lucky enough to one day find someone who it beats in time with, then that has to be worth the risk. At the end of the day, I am more in tune with myself now than I ever have been before and the power of that is phenomenal. You’ll have to forgive me for this self-indulgent ramble that is more reflective essay than book review, but before I was a reviewer, I was a writer, and sometimes certain books just bring that out in me. Notes on Heartbreak has prompted me to compile my own notes on heartbreak – and recovery. This is definitely an example of the universe handing you the right book at the right time.
“And it’s through this inner dialogue that you become conscious of yourself as someone you can talk to and have a relationship with. I look at her now in that mirror and she’s me and I am her, and although we’re the same thing I see that we can talk to each other even if I will always know what’s coming because she, her, me, is the only thing I can count on to be there for the whole of my life.”
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.
#NotesonHeartbreak
August 14, 2022
A book that felt like a friend
June 23, 2022
I wish this book had existed a year ago when I was in the throes of my own horrendous and soul-consuming heartbreak, but it's no less meaningful or comforting to read now, and has definitely helped my heart heal in ways I didn't even realize needed healing. Annie writes with such brutal and unflinching honesty and her courage is really inspiring. She paints the very best and the absolute worst of love, not to mention all the chaos and exhilaration in between. This is not just a breakup memoir; this is a love letter to all the broken and the brokenhearted.
Thank you to the publisher for the advanced reading copy!
Thank you to the publisher for the advanced reading copy!
July 20, 2022
2.5 stars - half a one for effort.
I DNF this book with less than 100 pages to go, it was repetitive and just sad. I got bored and couldn’t even be bothered finishing it. Such a disappointment because the premise is good. Out of Love & Everything I Know About Love were executed far far better than Notes on Heartbreak, probably with the humour added to the mix. This book just got so dry and dull. Some reflections were really well written and tugged on my heartstrings, but a lot of the interactions lacked in both the characterisation and the events of the plot. Maybe if you’re currently going through a heartbreak you’d enjoy this book, but it missed the mark for me. Lord is a great writer, there is no doubt about that. But there is a difference between writing and storytelling.
I DNF this book with less than 100 pages to go, it was repetitive and just sad. I got bored and couldn’t even be bothered finishing it. Such a disappointment because the premise is good. Out of Love & Everything I Know About Love were executed far far better than Notes on Heartbreak, probably with the humour added to the mix. This book just got so dry and dull. Some reflections were really well written and tugged on my heartstrings, but a lot of the interactions lacked in both the characterisation and the events of the plot. Maybe if you’re currently going through a heartbreak you’d enjoy this book, but it missed the mark for me. Lord is a great writer, there is no doubt about that. But there is a difference between writing and storytelling.
Read
November 5, 2024“Gostei mesmo muito da experiência de ouvir este livro porque foi como se estivesse no café com uma amiga, enquanto ela me contava toda a história do seu ex-relacionamento e tudo aquilo por que passou. A parte mais interessante, diria, é o facto de todos nós conseguirmos relacionar-nos com aquilo que nos é transmitido — todos nós já tivemos o coração partido, mesmo que não se deva ao fim de um namoro. Identifiquei muitas semelhanças com o processo de luto em geral — luto de alguém, de um projeto, de uma amizade — e adorei sentir esta universalidade na forma de escrever da autora.”
Review completa em: https://ritadanova.blogs.sapo.pt/note....
Review completa em: https://ritadanova.blogs.sapo.pt/note....
November 23, 2023
I loved this from start to finish. You really go through all the emotions with the author. It brings back a lot but comes to such a lovely conclusion with a lot of lessons learned along the way :)
May 6, 2023
I’ve wrote down several pieces from this book for myself. Things I understand and recognise myself, things I want to remember and things I wish for.
Such as:
“I’m going to really miss missing him. I wish I didnt have to forget how great he was in order to feel ok about what’s happened. I wish he wasn’t a ‘was’ but an ‘is’.”
“Perhaps we can carry on loving each other, even when miles of air and experience seperate us. Not in the way of wanting to wake up in the same bed. Or needing to speak to each other when something goes wrong. But as a quiet love that endures out of respect for the impact he had on my life.”
“The end of surprises sounds like a sad thing, but it wasn’t because even if you know exactly how a person will react to everything, hopefully in your mind the way they react to stuff is a way you admire. There’s a security in that, waiting for the inevitable and the inevitable always being a pleasure. Love sits there like a scaffolding and frees you up to think about other things.”
And so on and on…
Such as:
“I’m going to really miss missing him. I wish I didnt have to forget how great he was in order to feel ok about what’s happened. I wish he wasn’t a ‘was’ but an ‘is’.”
“Perhaps we can carry on loving each other, even when miles of air and experience seperate us. Not in the way of wanting to wake up in the same bed. Or needing to speak to each other when something goes wrong. But as a quiet love that endures out of respect for the impact he had on my life.”
“The end of surprises sounds like a sad thing, but it wasn’t because even if you know exactly how a person will react to everything, hopefully in your mind the way they react to stuff is a way you admire. There’s a security in that, waiting for the inevitable and the inevitable always being a pleasure. Love sits there like a scaffolding and frees you up to think about other things.”
And so on and on…
Read
August 1, 2024never had my heart broken so i fear my opinion is not needed here
October 18, 2023
“what hurts more than missing him is realising i no longer do” ❤️🩹
July 20, 2022
I’m a fan of Dolly Alderton’s writing and having read Annie Lords column in vogue I really thought this was going to be special. And in some ways it is and can see why most love it, however this style of metaphoric hyperbolic writing is just so overdone in the book that I constantly lost concentration.
The narrative wasn’t strong enough to carry it, the characters not warm enough to be relatable. The first chapter alone really should have been scrapped.
Anyway, I’ll look forward to the next dating article in vogue because they move me in ways that I had expected this book to do.
The narrative wasn’t strong enough to carry it, the characters not warm enough to be relatable. The first chapter alone really should have been scrapped.
Anyway, I’ll look forward to the next dating article in vogue because they move me in ways that I had expected this book to do.
November 27, 2025
nunca he sentido tanto con un libro como con este… qué barbaridad!!! creo que estés en el punto de tu vida que estés, si alguna vez has tenido el corazón roto este libro va a hacértelo sentir todo
Read
July 4, 2024“I’m about to hang up when you say, ‘I love you too.’
´Dont give me your sympathy.’
‘No, like, not in that way, but I actually do.’
And it sounds weird, but I know exactly what you mean. It’s a love that doesn’t feel like it’s going to burn through my chest, or bring me to tears, send me to your door in the middle of the night. It’s a softer, mellow love that glows in my heart like a warm night light. It makes me proud of who you are now, proud of who I am. It doesn’t ask for anything in return, and it doesn’t ask for me to do anything to prove it. It’s the sun on the back of your neck, it’s the ocean lapping at my feet. ‘I love you’ I say again, and I’m sure we will for the rest of our lives.”
´Dont give me your sympathy.’
‘No, like, not in that way, but I actually do.’
And it sounds weird, but I know exactly what you mean. It’s a love that doesn’t feel like it’s going to burn through my chest, or bring me to tears, send me to your door in the middle of the night. It’s a softer, mellow love that glows in my heart like a warm night light. It makes me proud of who you are now, proud of who I am. It doesn’t ask for anything in return, and it doesn’t ask for me to do anything to prove it. It’s the sun on the back of your neck, it’s the ocean lapping at my feet. ‘I love you’ I say again, and I’m sure we will for the rest of our lives.”
July 7, 2024
6 stars if possible
December 12, 2022
Definitely not the target audience as everything about this book annoyed me. The story is dull, the main character is extremely annoying, the narrator’s voice and tone almost put me to sleep. It’s probably directed to a younger audience.
August 2, 2022
This book released four days after my four year relationship came to an end. I wandered into a bookstore, saw this sitting on the shelf, and instantly bought it. Perfect timing, huh?
I’m not sure what I can say about this book, in terms of a review, just that I’m so glad it came out when it did, and it’s helped me a lot over the past few days.
I’m not sure what I can say about this book, in terms of a review, just that I’m so glad it came out when it did, and it’s helped me a lot over the past few days.
July 10, 2023
This book has left me both tearful and joyful - such a beautiful bittersweet book on the pain of heartbreak and the journey you endure to work through it.
It made me feel so much less alone and I couldn’t recommend it more to anyone that is struggling, or who has struggled with the end of a relationship, especially one that started during your teenage years.
It made me feel so much less alone and I couldn’t recommend it more to anyone that is struggling, or who has struggled with the end of a relationship, especially one that started during your teenage years.
Read
October 27, 2024
will review later 💭
March 2, 2024
I didn’t hugely enjoy this book.
There are some really good explorations of themes like eating disorders, but I feel as if these would be better having been written as poems. The author writes intensely about a disordered eating episode but then the theme doesn’t arise again. Equally, the explorations of heartbreak were good in parts but the whole book just didn’t fit well together for me.
Also, the random references to other feminist books were interesting but not integrated well.
A quick, easy read but not my favourite.
There are some really good explorations of themes like eating disorders, but I feel as if these would be better having been written as poems. The author writes intensely about a disordered eating episode but then the theme doesn’t arise again. Equally, the explorations of heartbreak were good in parts but the whole book just didn’t fit well together for me.
Also, the random references to other feminist books were interesting but not integrated well.
A quick, easy read but not my favourite.
March 23, 2024
The only thing that has made me feel less awfully alone these past months. I am new to the breakup genre, but this one might take the cake. What a lovely and brave woman.
April 26, 2024
nao é querendo ser dramática mas esse livro meio que mudou minha vida
November 11, 2023
Tämä auttoi sydänsuruihini enemmän kuin mikään koskaan ikinä.
August 19, 2024
I just love to know more about a person experiences, the point of view, what and how they felt, the more detailed the better. It was really intersting to read about Annie's prespective and i found it curious that like me, she sometimes quotes another authors to better describe it, and now she is the one that is quoted.
One of the many that I highlighted:
“Dealing with a break-up is unlike any skill you will ever learn. The world teaches you that in order to fix things you have to do. If you want to get better at football, play more. If you want to get better at painting, paint more. But google how to make him want me back' and WikiHow says let him contact you, 'give your ex space',
'allow them time to heal'.
Not doing requires more concentration than doing. You have to focus on it because, if you relax for even a second, your thumb might text him without your brain ever granting permission”
One of the many that I highlighted:
“Dealing with a break-up is unlike any skill you will ever learn. The world teaches you that in order to fix things you have to do. If you want to get better at football, play more. If you want to get better at painting, paint more. But google how to make him want me back' and WikiHow says let him contact you, 'give your ex space',
'allow them time to heal'.
Not doing requires more concentration than doing. You have to focus on it because, if you relax for even a second, your thumb might text him without your brain ever granting permission”
September 5, 2023
It’s a DNF from me. I just couldn’t carry on reading the hyperbole of feelings. When she started wondering whether she would be forever doomed to be a “half thing” because her bf broke up with her, I needed to put this down. Her version of heartbreak is so dramatic that I’m astonished she is alive today.
August 5, 2024
This book was able to say so many things I couldn’t about heartbreak. The authors prose is so god dam relatable and the way she’s able to take all the conversations from her life, the expirences she had, the inside jokes, the grief…it was like living in my own past relationship. I want to read this book every year to remind myself how to never fall into codependency ever again!
February 15, 2025
llevo leyendo este libro muchísimo tiempo, lo he ido leyendo a cuentagotas para disfrutar realmente de cada pensamiento de la autora y puedo decir que te acoge. te hace entender lo que vive la protagonista, a su novio (exnovio) y cómo repercute y ha repercutido en su vida el impacto del otro, sabiendo que después de un vínculo así, siempre os quedáis de alguna manera, el uno en el otro.
“she wouldn't be her if she did those things. That […] is part of what makes her, just as much as her nice hair was, or the way she walked, or whatever.”
“again. I felt your hands on my back tracing the letters ‘I--l-o-v-e--y-o-u’. I didn’t move. ‘Say it back,’ you told me. I’d had these words in me for so long, I was afraid of them touching the air. I couldn’t let them out right away. ‘Say it,’ you told me again, and I did. ‘I love you.’
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I still do. I’ll try my best to forget, but I think I’ll love you for all my life.”
“she wouldn't be her if she did those things. That […] is part of what makes her, just as much as her nice hair was, or the way she walked, or whatever.”
“again. I felt your hands on my back tracing the letters ‘I--l-o-v-e--y-o-u’. I didn’t move. ‘Say it back,’ you told me. I’d had these words in me for so long, I was afraid of them touching the air. I couldn’t let them out right away. ‘Say it,’ you told me again, and I did. ‘I love you.’
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I still do. I’ll try my best to forget, but I think I’ll love you for all my life.”
July 7, 2023
2023 reread edit: well well well, doesn't a lot change in a year.
“Progress isn't linear, though. If you plotted it onto a graph, it wouldn't be this straight line up towards happiness. It would wiggle backwards, then forwards, up and down. You might feel worse in a month from now than you did a few weeks after it happened. But that doesn't mean you're not healing. It just means that we all experience emotions at different times.”
When I read these words by Annie Lord last year, I didn't believe her. Heartbreak makes us selfish, inward-looking creatures who believe that our pain is so large, surely no one else had ever felt this way before, and surely there is no way out.
Well, spoiler: there is a way out, it does end, and even though heartbreak feels so uniquely targeted and personal, it's probably one of the most universal feelings. Heartbreak ends, and love comes to find us once again. Credit to Annie Lord for capturing and sharing this feeling through her writing. An admirable feat to say the least.
~~~
(2022 initial read review: fair warning I was really going thru it when I first read this book lmao)
Reading this book felt like cosmic intervention. It felt like this book was created for me, to help save me from my wallow and self pity in the wake of a recent, blindsiding breakup. Like most people I tend to shy away from the ugly parts of myself, denying their existence from myself and others. But Annie Lord in her unflinching honesty shows that these ugly parts aren’t ugly at all. Reading about Annie Lord’s pain, jealousy, anger, sorrow, self-pity, regret, and numbness left me feeling connected to her in a way I haven’t felt with many books.
I don’t think I’ll feel okay or free of free of heartbreak any time soon. But reading this book may have been the best thing I’ve done for myself since it happened.
“Progress isn't linear, though. If you plotted it onto a graph, it wouldn't be this straight line up towards happiness. It would wiggle backwards, then forwards, up and down. You might feel worse in a month from now than you did a few weeks after it happened. But that doesn't mean you're not healing. It just means that we all experience emotions at different times.”
When I read these words by Annie Lord last year, I didn't believe her. Heartbreak makes us selfish, inward-looking creatures who believe that our pain is so large, surely no one else had ever felt this way before, and surely there is no way out.
Well, spoiler: there is a way out, it does end, and even though heartbreak feels so uniquely targeted and personal, it's probably one of the most universal feelings. Heartbreak ends, and love comes to find us once again. Credit to Annie Lord for capturing and sharing this feeling through her writing. An admirable feat to say the least.
~~~
(2022 initial read review: fair warning I was really going thru it when I first read this book lmao)
Reading this book felt like cosmic intervention. It felt like this book was created for me, to help save me from my wallow and self pity in the wake of a recent, blindsiding breakup. Like most people I tend to shy away from the ugly parts of myself, denying their existence from myself and others. But Annie Lord in her unflinching honesty shows that these ugly parts aren’t ugly at all. Reading about Annie Lord’s pain, jealousy, anger, sorrow, self-pity, regret, and numbness left me feeling connected to her in a way I haven’t felt with many books.
I don’t think I’ll feel okay or free of free of heartbreak any time soon. But reading this book may have been the best thing I’ve done for myself since it happened.
July 13, 2023
Maybe I am a little too biased, but this has been healing me. It’s one of those books that unconsciously starts inhabiting all corners of your brain in such a beautiful, cathartic way.
Here’s one of those quotes you could print and hang on the wall of your bedroom next to that small, misplaced mirror:
“It’s through this inner dialogue that you become conscious of yourself as someone you can talk to and have a relationship with. (…) I see that we can talk to each other even if I will always know what’s coming because she, her, me, is the only thing I can count on to be there for the whole of my life. (…) I experience another ‘over’, and this time it’s a promise, to keep on being nice to her. (…) because this life could be gorgeous if only I have myself permission to allow it.”
And here’s some on-point ones:
“Women are never just women, they’re the men they prop up and save.”
“Men say women aren't funny and I think that's because they need a badum-bum-tish punchline; they don't see that the humour is riddled through everything we say, so that evervone's always laughing a little bit.”
“I am a vessel for him to see his own perfection. What Virginia Woolf meant when she said women are looking glasses that reflect the image of man back at twice their natural size.”
“I can listen to Taylor Swift's 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' at full volume and know that it's women like me she's written it for.”
Here’s one of those quotes you could print and hang on the wall of your bedroom next to that small, misplaced mirror:
“It’s through this inner dialogue that you become conscious of yourself as someone you can talk to and have a relationship with. (…) I see that we can talk to each other even if I will always know what’s coming because she, her, me, is the only thing I can count on to be there for the whole of my life. (…) I experience another ‘over’, and this time it’s a promise, to keep on being nice to her. (…) because this life could be gorgeous if only I have myself permission to allow it.”
And here’s some on-point ones:
“Women are never just women, they’re the men they prop up and save.”
“Men say women aren't funny and I think that's because they need a badum-bum-tish punchline; they don't see that the humour is riddled through everything we say, so that evervone's always laughing a little bit.”
“I am a vessel for him to see his own perfection. What Virginia Woolf meant when she said women are looking glasses that reflect the image of man back at twice their natural size.”
“I can listen to Taylor Swift's 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' at full volume and know that it's women like me she's written it for.”
August 23, 2022
I didn’t love this book as much as I thought I would. I really wanted to love it. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this book is just a self indulgent homage to a man that has been placed on a pedestal (just for something different huh 🙃). I wanted Annie to break free of this diatribe faster but this book really is just 400 pages of her reflecting on the tiny nuances of her past relationship.
Its like listening to your friend complain endlessly about their breakup yet never seek therapy for coping strategies or ways to move on.
I really don’t want to be unkind about this book as the writing is excellent, I wouldn’t have finished it otherwise. Annie paints vivid, visceral stories and she is likeable and relatable.
Perhaps I would have enjoyed this book more if I was in the throes of my own breakup, in order to relate better to it. But I’m unconvinced.
Its like listening to your friend complain endlessly about their breakup yet never seek therapy for coping strategies or ways to move on.
I really don’t want to be unkind about this book as the writing is excellent, I wouldn’t have finished it otherwise. Annie paints vivid, visceral stories and she is likeable and relatable.
Perhaps I would have enjoyed this book more if I was in the throes of my own breakup, in order to relate better to it. But I’m unconvinced.
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